Thank you all for standing by, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to today's full year 2020 results conference call. At this time, all participants will be on listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by a question and answer session. To ask a question over the audio, you can press star one on your telephone. Please be advised the call is being recorded. I would now like to hand the call over to our speaker, Chairman and CEO, Mr. Gilles Grapinet. Thank you.
Many thanks, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning, this is Gilles Grapinet speaking. Thank you for attending this Worldline conf call today on our full year 2020 results. I'm going to share this presentation, as usual, with our Deputy CEO, Marc-Henri Desportes, and our Group CFO, Eric Heurtaux. Let me start by sharing with you that 2020 has truly been a landmark year for Worldline, despite the challenging pandemic context we all know. I am indeed very satisfied with the strategic execution we have conducted while delivering, I believe, very solid figures. It has been possible with the full engagement and commitment of our teams, which I want to warmly thank in front of you all. Now, to highlight this execution, I have four main elements to share with you today.
First, as you all know, we have experienced unprecedented constraints across the world, with the COVID-19 materializing through very severe confinements and lockdowns, impacting massively domestic and international transactions. But this situation had somewhere a positive impact on the evolution of the payment ecosystem, accelerating the cash to card shift and pushing online as mandatory for a lot of merchants. These trends definitely offer short and medium-term growth opportunities for Worldline, driven by a real, long-lasting change in consumer behaviors. Second, we could deliver solid numbers, completely in line or above the trajectory defined for the year in April 2020. We've been very resilient in a volatile environment, highlighting the relevance and robustness of our business model. Marc-Henri and Eric will comment it in a minute. Third, during the year, we continued to fully execute the strategic development of Worldline.
2020, from that standpoint, has truly been a strategic milestone in our company's history with the acquisition of Ingenico. Our integration and synergy plans are progressing at a rapid pace. More than ever, we cover the entire payment value chain with outstanding market positions in online payments, merchant acquiring, and transaction processing. The acquisition has ideally positioned us for the structural transformation of our markets. And fourth, we've been able to pursue participating into the market consolidation with the strategic alliance signed with ANZ in Australia, providing to Worldline a very powerful access to an attractive market, with significant market share and a very meaningful, and very meaningful acquiring volumes.
This transaction highlights, once more, our capacity to build long-term alliances globally with successful banks, and demonstrate the relevance of our new go-to-market merchant services for financial institutions, based on a repeatable blueprint model that opened the door to further joint ventures and alliances. Moving forward, and to share a few data about the transformation of the payment market. As we know, there is no precedent of such health crisis, and it is definitely the first time that we have seen hundreds of millions of people confined at home with the physical impossibility to consume as usual during a long period of time. But taking it on the right side, we have really witnessed a strong acceleration of existing trends in consumer behavior, reshaping the way we pay towards more electronic and online payments, and in merchant offerings, able to adapt their business toward more digitization.
I would like to highlight a few key points, which are strong illustration of payment habits reshaping due to the COVID-19 health crisis. First, in the face-to-face commerce, the shift from cash to card is clearly accelerating. In 2020, we have seen a 13% drop in cash usage in Europe. This movement has been sustained and supported by governmental push, doubling the threshold overall for contactless payment that start to become a standard for in-store payments. As a clear example, in Germany, which was historically a country strongly cash-exposed, we have seen a 33% increase in contactless usage in 2020, to reach now 68% of payments. Second, the shift towards digital payments, with the strong growth of online activity becoming mandatory for a lot of merchants.
Overall, we have seen a digital adoption from digital banking to digital payments, jumping by certain points from 81% to 94% during the health crisis. More importantly, but fully in line with my first comment, we have identified a strong shift from face-to-face commerce to e-commerce, a direct impact coming from the lockdowns. According to international card schemes, this shift seems to be sustainable for a big portion of it, between 20%-30%, probably, which will put us in a strong position due to our online activity, representing now 30% + of our overall merchant services business. Fundamentally, this health crisis has triggered new consumer behaviors that will reinforce the long-term growth opportunities for our group, as well as for the entire payment sector. Coming back now on the key 2020 figures, these are reflecting precisely our very strong resilience.
Revenue for 2020 was EUR 2.75 billion, representing an organic decline of 4.6% compared to 2019 at constant scope and exchange rates. Regarding profitability, our OMDA stood at EUR 700 million, representing a 25.5% of revenue, or sixty basis point improvement compared to 2019. This margin improvement comes from our ability to react early in the crisis with cost containment measures, but on top, starting to benefit from synergies and from our business mix. Full year 2020 free cash flow was EUR 349 million, representing a strong conversion ratio at 49.8% of OMDA. It's 200 basis points above the conversion rate of last year, thanks to the strong cash management and control put in place by Eric and his team.
Normalized net income group share reached EUR 361 million, up 20% versus last year, and normalized EPS reached EUR 1.76 per share, up 8%. As you can see, all our 2020 objectives have been reached or exceeded. Last, but certainly not least, we could make 2020 a decisive year, as you all know from the strategic standpoint, reinforcing massively Worldline global reach and scale through the transformational acquisition of Ingenico, positioning the group at the forefront of the European payment ecosystem, the strategic partnership signed with ANZ, the acquisition of GoPay, enhancing our online capabilities in the fast-growing Eastern European market. While we could engage the acceleration of the transformation of TSS toward more recurring revenue business model through payment platform as a service with the acquisition of Easy Payments.
You, of course, know on this call the benefits of each transaction, as we have already described them along the last year. But as a summary, I would like to re-emphasize that in 2020, we have definitely change of scale, becoming the European leader and number 4 worldwide. We have very significantly reinforced our long-term growth potential with three times more online payment than before, and we have ahead of us a very large amount of synergies to be delivered as soon as 2021 down well to 2024. But for me, maybe the more important is the perfect timing of our strategic transformation. While the world around us was shaking, we could make 2020 incredibly useful for the group.
Not only we have signed and closed our largest acquisition ever, but we actively prepare the integration during last year, and for the last four months now, we are running as one, fully integrated, actively extracting synergies, and ready to harvest all the benefits of our combined group in an even more promising market than before, once the pandemic will have gone away. It's time for me now to hand over to Marc-Henri.
Thank you, Gilles, and good morning to you all. Turning now to a brief comment of the revenue evolution for the full year. As you can see on this graph, the quarterly revenue curves for three business lines that are exposed to transactions volumes. As we already commented in previous quarters, thanks to the diversified business profile, Worldline's revenue was globally resilient to the extraordinary COVID-19 context. You can see here, after the strong Q3 recovery from -13.1 organic decline in Q2 to -2.7% in Q3, we have been impacted in Q4 due to the lockdowns and curfews in place in our major countries, such as the DACH region.
Now, looking at the table below, in which you can see transaction volumes operated by Worldline, the main highlights are that account payments were not significantly impacted and have delivered a steady growth along the year. For the card transaction, quite similarly, in issuing and acquiring in-store, we have seen the same dynamic, completely mirroring the effect of government constraints. On that front, debit card remained quite resilient, reflecting the domestic transactions, while credit card were down, as they are mostly used for travels, restaurants, and hospitality transactions. Online remained dynamic, fueled by non-travel verticals such as digital goods and services or marketplaces, reflecting a change in consumer habits, as mentioned by Gilles earlier, and some business wins. There is another important point to mention when looking at the performance of the group during the year 2020, which is the geographical exposure of Worldline.
We are mainly exposed to the wealthiest European countries, which are also the ones mainly impacted by severe restrictions, such as lockdown and curfews, in the course of 2020, and somehow, even more so at the end of the year. The situation is still ongoing for a lot of them during the first quarter of 2021. But the government restrictions came in this country with protective measures to the economy, and households in both regions have created a massive reserve of savings. We are talking about a couple of hundred billion EUR for France and Germany only. As far as we know, it is the first time that the saving rates reach this all-time high, close to 2 x more than during the subprime crisis in 2008, 2009, as you can see on the curve.
This is mainly driven by forced savings coming from the inability to consume in a lockdown environment. Remember that consumption was down 12% in Q2 2020. What we observe in Q3 that the partial ease of constraints led to an immediate rebound of consumptions, unfortunately, stopped as soon as September by the second wave, which is, we have a good historical view. We consider that online exposure to the most impacted but wealthiest countries, associated with the record level of household savings, definitely represent a catch-up opportunity when restrictions will be removed in a post-COVID environment. Now, coming back to the Q4 wins, let me share with you some highlights, commencing with merchant services.
For the food chain McDonald's, what is interesting here is that the implementation of an end-to-end contactless payment solution at their drive-through restaurants, it highlights the need for safe and contactless payment, which has been an important incentive for these merchants to upgrade to more innovative payment solutions, respecting social distancing constraints. So you see an example of many similar things we had across our portfolio, and this has been rolled out, this solution, across regions, based on our new Valina acceptance solution. We did also continue to gain traction with big retailers, looking at an efficient state-of-the-art omni-channel capabilities with a seamless integration to their own infrastructure. I can give two examples.
Olymp, a major online store with more than one physical store, which by the way, was a former Wirecard customer, to whom we will provide the full payment processing capabilities online and in-store, covering their physical store in several countries on top of their online merchant platform. And Auchan, the famous French retailer, with a rollout in more than 500 stores in France on a full omni-channel acceptance solution. Through this solution, we will manage more than 300 million transactions per year, with a lot of value-added features, such as smart routing and financial reconciliation. In financial services, we already share with you the five-year contract renewal with the Austrian banks through PSA. I'm pleased to say that we extended it with a new contract relating to their new E-identity program.
Finally, in MTS, we have renewed a contract with Agence de Services et de Paiement to build and operate the energy voucher program in France, helping precarious people to pay their energy, gas, and electricity bills. As always, these are only examples of the numerous deals we signed during the quarter. In 2020, we have, as well, continued the ongoing strategic development of TSS, Terminal Services and Solutions, to accelerate their business model transition towards more recurring revenues based on the payment platform as a service solution that we call PPAS. This PPAS will empower acquirers to offer state-of-the-art payment and commerce acceptance solution to their merchants. Today, we have a dedicated team of circa 100 engineers working on this project with strong technological and software skills. On top, during the fourth quarter, we have made the acquisition of Easy Payments.
It is a technology company headquartered in Singapore with engineering and software development operation based in India. This company has developed a deep expertise in designing, delivering innovative combination of cloud-based solutions, ranging from payment orchestration to thin client application for payment devices. Last, a group of targeted clients have been onboarded as foundational partners, including Tier One European banks, to design, build, and launch the solution. These partners, who are banks, acquirers, ISOs, and ISVs, with dedicated resources for regular integration with our technology team, and of course, will be the top users. With our internal tech teams, the acquisition of Easy Payments, and our foundational partners, we are confident that we have the necessary expertise and tools to accelerate the development, and ultimately, the commercial launch of PPAS solution in Q4 2021. Coming now to the Ingenico integration.
So applying our integration culture and methodology, we have successfully launched all the 31 work streams embedded in our plan, generating an immediate activation of synergies quick wins. The good start of this detailed synergy plan allow us to confirm the trajectory to deliver EUR 250 million synergies by 2024. Now, turning to the roadmap for 2021, we have implemented day one strong integration of Merchant Services teams that we presented to you during the closing call, with a compelling business transformation based on a verticalized go-to-market approach, paired with transversal product teams. This is in full motion now. Second, we have immediately launched a full review for technology platform landscape to define the right targets to operate and generate the scale effects through convergence.
Last but not least, we will see as well the first tangible benefits of our scale effects with the deduplication of development projects, consolidation of real estate, massification of purchasing spend, and transformation of back office and support functions. In a nutshell, all the initiatives that I have just mentioned are very well on track towards our target of EUR 66 million positive impact on the OMDA in 2021. Now, looking forward, we as a management team, believe that beyond the short-term COVID-related tension, our 2021 and medium-term perspectives are more than strong in terms of growth and margin improvement, mainly driven by a full execution of our strategic roadmap already in motion. We can already see the positive effects of our new go-to-market organization through the commercial activity we have, and the dynamism in providing new products and solutions to our merchants.
Digging into more details, I would like to highlight following successes. On the small and medium business front, we are able to onboard thousands of net new merchants every month globally, thanks to a digital offering and to end-to-end solution for for onboarding typically. Regarding the large retailers on our omni-channel capability linked to ability to drive a full seamless integration from acceptance to merchant IT systems without any execution risk, has provided us confidence of Tier One players and a rich pipeline for the quarter to come. On the online side, our focus in parallel of merchant gains has been to broaden the offering portfolio. As example, I can mention our progress in offering extended access to favorite local payment solutions to, for example, Indian or Chinese customers.
We also work, among others, to give online payment merchants a live access to their data through the Data as a Service offering embedded into our Insight solution, that I could mention, and many more. We are structured to deploy the powerful payment processing unit of financial servicing, highlighting the perfect fit and state-of-the-art performance of our platform for outsourcing needs of large banks, such as UniCredit and co- or Commerzbank, you know, the two, latest big names in terms of wins. Finally, we have successfully rolled out the Terminal as a Service offering solution in Europe, on top of new contract then in the US, highlighting the relevance of the as-a-service model and needs from our bank and acquiring partners in this domain.
To conclude, sorry, with the margin improvement opportunity, we have all the levers enhanced to provide an enhanced margin profile coming from our track record on delivering strong synergies from acquisition. And you can see on this slide the quantum expected for the coming years. And this combined with a continuous cost-based management, as reflected in our 2020 performance, improving our OMDA margin in a volatile top line environment. Now, I hand over to Eric to present you the financial performance and the guidance of the year before a wrap-up and conclusion from Gilles.
Thank you, Marc-Henri, and good morning to all of you. First, I would like to cover the revenue building blocks for the full year 2020. As you can see, we are down 4.6% organically, which is a solid achievement, highlighting the strong resilience of Worldline business model in an adverse COVID environment, including a not expected second wave in H2. As you can see, the most impacted division is merchant services, down 7.7% organically, mainly impacted by a drop on in-store activities in Q2 and Q4 due to the lockdown measures. On the other side, online and omni-channel activities remain dynamic for the non-travel verticals such as digital goods, gaming, or marketplaces. Financial services showed a strong resilience in this environment, being down only 1.6% organically, thanks to recurring payment flows and the ramp-up of newly signed large outsourcing contracts.
TSS, with a contribution mainly coming from a two-month integration from Ingenico, was down 1.9%. The division was benefited from a strong performance of mature markets, such as EMEA, in line with expected trajectory. MTS revenue was down with an organic decline of 3.1%, impacted by the trusted digitization activities and ticketing, not compensated by the strong performance of e-consumer activities. Now, moving to the next slide regarding OMDA. Our OMDA pro forma is broadly stable at EUR 700 million in 2020, but showing a 60 basis point improvement in terms of OMDA margin, reaching 25.5%. This performance is driven by the delivery of synergies coming from SPS, the tight cost control put in place early in the crisis, and the resilience of our business models.
In more detail, MS profitability is up 150 basis points to 24.9%, benefiting from the cost control actions implemented during the year to compensate COVID-19 impact on revenue, the execution of synergies of SPS, and in a lesser extent, Ingenico. Of course, we also have ongoing transversal productivity improvement action that contributed as well as usual. The division benefited also from its comparatively higher variable cost base than FS. FS OMDA margin was indeed down 240 basis points to 31.2%, impacted by its high proportion of fixed costs in a volume decrease environment. On top, OMDA has been impacted by investments related to a ramp-up phase of a newly large contract signed. In parallel, cost measure has been implemented to mitigate OMDA contraction.
Last, FS did not benefit from the usual level of project activity in the context of more limited investment from its clients in the last part of the year. TSS performance came in strong, with a 660 basis point improvement in OMDA margin, mostly driven by the geographical mix with Europe, performing strongly in Q4, by the transformation as well, and cost saving plans initiated early 2020, leading to a lean cost base in front of higher revenue. MTS profitability has been impacted mainly by the business trend in e-ticketing, mainly in the UK and Latin market, due to the health constraint. And so OMDA margin is down by only 90 basis points, a good performance coming from the cost measure implemented during the year to adapt the cost base to a top line.
Last, on the corporate side, we have pursued a strong action taken to contain and streamline our cost base. Now moving to the OMDA, to the other element of the income statement. Non-recurring items is EUR 276 million, and consisted mainly in purchase price allocation amortization for EUR 114 million. The increase was linked to the acquisition of Ingenico. Integration and acquisition costs of EUR 105 million, corresponding mainly to FS payment services integration costs, and costs related to the acquisition and integration of Ingenico. For the rest, it's mainly related to EUR 22 million increase in IFRS 2 equity-based compensation, notably related to Ingenico integration. As a result, operating income for the full year 2020 was EUR 245 million.
Net financial expense amounted to EUR 28 million, with, in particular, net cost of financial debt of EUR 20 million for the interest of the bonds and OCEANEs issued in 2020, and the full year effect of the ones issued in 2019. I also remind you that 2019 net financial result benefited from the recognition of the fair value of Visa preferred share for EUR 24 million, and of a contingent consideration related to SPS acquisition for EUR 118 million. The tax charge was EUR 51 million, with an ETR down 170 basis points at 23.4% versus 25.1% last year, normalized from the FPS contingent consideration. We don't have significant non-controlling interest anymore since the acquisition of a minority shareholding in equensWorldline , and since Payone was consolidated only for two months.
As a result of the above item, net income Group share was EUR 164 million, impacted by higher non-recurring items and no significant positive one-off as in 2019. The normalized net income Group share that EUR 361 million, up 20.2%, and our normalized diluted EPS, which EUR 1.76 , compared to 1.6063 in 2019. Regarding the free cash flow statement, CapEx were EUR 155 million, representing 5.7% of sales, fully in line with a range of 5%-6% we usually are comfortable with. Highlighting that despite the COVID environment, we have maintained our CapEx intensity not to hamper the future growth rate.
The change in working capital requirement in December 2020 is as expected, with a positive EUR 46 million impact, in line with the trends seen in H1 and reversing the negative evolution of 2019. Integration costs were slightly up and are mainly related to Ingenico for the start of integration and some past acquisition costs on over recent acquisition. On top, we have isolated the EUR 54 million related to Ingenico transaction cost. All in all, the full year free cash flow before Ingenico transaction cost, which was the metric for our full year 2020 guidance, reached EUR 349 million, representing 49.8% of OMDA, an improvement of the conversion rate by 200 basis points on a comparable scope.
Including Ingenico transaction cost, our free cash flow was EUR 295 million, still representing 42.1% of OMDA. Now, regarding the net debt evolution, the group net debt increased to EUR 3,165 million against EUR 641 million at the beginning of the year. The main component of this evolution is, of course, the acquisition of Ingenico, corresponding to a cash outflow of EUR 2.8 billion. The positive impact of the accounting treatment of our convertible bond contributed positively for EUR 77 million. Our net debt is well in line with our expectation at the beginning of the year, and with our plan to quickly reduce our net debt to OMDA ratio below 2x, driven by our free cash flow generation.
Now, on the next slide, we have decided to provide you the full view of our revenue and OMDA pro forma, including the contribution of Ingenico on a full year basis, having in mind that our 2021 guidance will be based on this reference point. As already explained by Marc-Henri and myself, 2020 activity has been impacted by the health environment, which has generated close to EUR 400 million impact on the top line. It remains a resilient performance in such a volatile environment. After, we have some negative impact on FX, with euro mostly appreciating against other currencies, amounting to slightly more than EUR 100 million, mainly coming from Ingenico and in particular, TSS activity, due to its worldwide presence.
At the end, our lending point reached EUR 4.8 billion as of end 2020, from the EUR 5.3 billion 2019, we have computed early February at the announcement of the acquisition of Ingenico. Last, the OMDA margin for 2020 was 23.9%, impacted by the slightly lower profitability of Ingenico standalone... Now moving to 2021 and the situation we expect in terms of revenue scenario. As you can see, due to the current constraint in our major countries, and as Marc-Henri has described earlier, we expect a gradual recovery along the year, reaching our cruising speed in the second half.
Our scenario is built as follows: for the first half 2020, we expect to be flat to slightly negative in terms of organic performance, driven by severe governmental domestic restrictions during Q1 2021, including lockdowns of non-essential merchants, curfew, and border restrictions. It should lead to a Q1 performance at the crossroads between Q2 2020 and Q4 2020. It is also based on the assumption of partial relief of restrictions in the course of H1 2021, in particular in Q2 2021, with no significant intra-European travels, no intercontinental travels, and a ramp-up of vaccination campaigns. Maybe more important for the second half 2020, we expect to reaccelerate towards a double-digit organic growth based on the ease of domestic restrictions with end of lockdown for non-essential merchants, end of curfews, and border restrictions.
Intra-European travel fully allowed and progressive return to normal level of travel flows. Still, we do not anticipate significant international travel. Here, you have now the full scenario trends we have taken into account to build our full year guidance that I will detail in the next slide. Based on this modeling, we expect the full year 2020 to reach at least mid-single-digit revenue organic growth and OMDA margin improvement by circa 200 basis points to reach circa 26% compared to the 2019-2020 pro forma margin of 23.9%, including Ingenico, on a full year basis. And finally, an OMDA conversion rate into free cash flow of circa 50%. Now, I'd like to leave the floor to Gilles for the conclusion.
Many thanks, Eric. Let me indeed conclude first with some key takeaways of 2020. Three, as a matter of fact. First, our group has very well performed, demonstrating resilience thanks to its business mix, but more importantly, maybe, a remarkable level of cost control and free cash flow generation in an adverse environment. Second, the payment market is changing in our favor faster than ever, and beyond the comments we made on the acceleration of the shift from cash to card, there are also new major initiatives, like EPI, that are going to accelerate this shift to a less cash-intensive society. Third, our group has changed immensely over the last year and is better positioned than ever to participate into the brilliant payment sector consolidation.
This is, of course, what is shaping our 2021 priority, which will be highly focused on our strategic roadmap execution, which is two-fold, as a matter of fact. First, our growth profile and margin improvement trajectory will be priority number one of the group. And despite our expectation of an ongoing volatile environment at the beginning of this year, we are going to focus on the strongest possible acceleration of our growth rate upon the progressive normalization of the health situation during 2021, as described by Eric.
In that context, we will be particularly focused on the quickest execution of our synergy roadmap to reach EUR 250 million as planned by 2024, coming from Ingenico, on top, of course, of the future synergies from ANZ, and not forgetting the one that will flow in from the SPS year number three and four of the SPS integration. Second priority, we will keep a very strong momentum on all our strategic initiative, with the commitment to complete in 2021 the currently ongoing strategic review of the payment terminal activities and the permanent continuation of our search for scale enhancement through sizing any value creative consolidation opportunities.
With the team here, we are deeply convinced that this new Worldline offers a powerful growth engine in the post-COVID era, and I am very pleased to confirm that we will hold an investor day, most certainly in the course of the second half of 2021, to present you, with my teams, all the growth and margin levers embedded into this new Worldline. Thank you very much for your attention, and I am now ready with Marc-Henri and Eric to take your questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question over the phone, kindly press star one on your telephone keypad, and for your name to be announced. To cancel your request, kindly press the hash key. Once again, if you have any questions, you may press star one. The first question, it's from the line of James Goodman from Barclays. Thank you.
... Questions from me, please. Just firstly, coming back on the guidance, I understand very much the double digit trajectory anticipating for H2, but to dig in a little bit into the H1 commentary, I think you said Q1 performance, you see somewhere between Q2 and Q4 of last year, which makes sense. I think for me, the question is Q2, you know, has an extremely low base, it was a very sort of strong lockdown last year. Just mathematically, that's quite powerful. Would have anticipated sort of more than an offsetting effect in Q2 to slightly bring up the H1 level there.
So maybe you could help us a little bit with that, maybe with some building blocks around the divisional expectations or anything sort of specific going on with the terminals asset. Anything to help us just understand a bit more that sort of phasing of growth as we go through the year. The second question, if I could ask you about the terminals strategic review, please. If you excuse my ignorance, really it's just around whether there's been a sort of a change to the timings here. You know, I had a sort of six-month strategic review in mind. Clearly, you had some lead into that, given the sort of February announcement of the deal last year. Has something changed there?
Is there sort of an increased likelihood of you doing something alternative with that asset, keeping it, for example, any other commentary around the terminal situation? Thank you.
Hi, James. Glad to hear you. Eric will maybe take your first question.
Yeah.
I will come back on the strategic review of the terminal.
Yeah. So indeed, in Q2, we expect a positive momentum due to the low comps of 2020. However, we kept an assumption that there will still be some governmental restriction on the activity in this second quarter, and that the full back to normal would be mostly in H2. That's the reason why, even though indeed we will benefit from growth in this quarter, we have not yet factored a full recovery versus the potential negative of Q1. And hence, our guidance that this semester should remain in our assumption, in our modeling, flat for the period.
Now, you know, we don't guide on a semester basis, we guide on a full year basis. So it may happen that indeed, things go a bit faster, and then we will enjoy probably a better momentum with Q2, which will enable us to secure our trajectory for the full year.
Okay, thank you, Eric. On the strategic review of the terminals, just to give you a bit of background, as you remember, we have, as a matter of fact, a lot ongoing around TSS. The first most important thing is that we are also, in parallel, running the integration of the Worldline payment terminal-related activities that were much smaller, but nonetheless, into the former Ingenico business to create TSS. So this, of course, had to be, carefully organized and planned. It is, by the way, planned part of the new, business plan that we are shaping for the new TSS organization to also ensure a fast extraction of the synergies that are associated with this sub-part of the integration, and which is also an integral part of the work we do to go along the strategic review. So this is really fully running as per plan.
I want to be very clear here, and we are totally confident that we will drive the full completion of the strategic review by year half. There is absolutely no change here. I think we have been making great progresses in the documentation of the value scenarios, pluses and minuses associated to each options. And of course, we are ready to pursue working at high pace on this strategic review, which is of critical importance, both for the business, as for the rest of the group. And the last comment.
Thank you.
Maybe, James, coming back on your question, I mean, I want to be very clear. You have understood from Eric that our revenue guidance is clearly built on a health scenario that has been very precisely described by Eric. I mean, I cannot, I cannot deny that one may think that potentially this guidance may leave room for upside, because we said at least mid-single digit organic growth for the full year. But it may accelerate, depending on the speed of return to a more normal situation. And of course, if governments are releasing a bit sooner than our scenarios some of the constraints they are currently applying in some of our key countries, of course, this will create definitely a very powerful growth momentum for us.
We just don't know if it will be exactly Q2, or we are very confident it should be H2, that everything is pinpointing in that direction. So this is the way we have been modeling, and it's what we want to share with you, this morning, which is definitely our best assumption of what we consider is a plausible scenario of a progressive return to normal. If it goes faster, it will be even better for the top line.
Yes, thanks. It makes a lot of sense in terms of how you constructed the guidance. Thank you.
Thank you. Our next question, it's from the line of Josh Levin from Autonomous. Thank you.
Yes, the first is on the guide. You're talking about double-digit growth in the second half of the year. How much of that will be due to easy comps, and how much due to a release of pent-up spending? Have you sort of modeled it at that granular level? And then the second question is, Gilles, you're not paying a dividend because you want to keep cash for M&A. I don't recall Worldline doing that before. Does that mean a deal is likely sooner rather than later? Thank you.
... Well, maybe I will start. Hello, Josh. Happy to hear you on this call, like everyone, by the way. Just maybe on the side, I just can't wait being with you in person, I must say. I'm just so frustrated by this virtual thing for already one year. I could have not ever believed that I would miss my trip with you in the streets of New York, in these black cars. Actually, I just miss them. Well, coming back to your question, Josh.
I mean, the board has been discussing that, you can guess, at length, but the board still believe that as it has been done since the IPO, the priority given to using the cash net generated by the company for further consolidation, is the most value creative option for the shareholders for the time being. So it will be the case for 2021. It does not rule out in the longer term that the board may change its views, due to the fact that the company will become bigger and bigger, and will deleverage, in particular, probably very fast, as you know. But for the time being, it just talks about 2021. The priority is given to us by the board for consolidation. It's why there is no dividend this year.
On the first question, related to the H2, it's obviously a mix of both. I would say, if I want to simplify a bit and help provide a bit of color, but Q3 last year was quite strong. You remember the positive recovery we had, so probably we expect more release of the consumption in this quarter, when Q4 was softer, huh? This is what we just commented, and therefore we will benefit from some easier comps in Q4, as well as still some release.
So that gives you a bit of perspective on how we deal with this double digit growth expectation for the second semester.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Sandeep Deshpande from JP Morgan. Thank you.
A couple of questions, if I may. Firstly, on the margin in Merchant Services, clearly, you, despite the significant decline in Merchant Services sales, you saw the increase in OMDA margin. Could you quantify how much of that increase in margin that you saw was synergies? And how much was, you know, cost savings? Because, see, some of these cost savings are travel, et cetera, related, which will come back at some point, hopefully. And that synergies is a question I have associated with Merchant Services. And then, secondly, with regard to the recovery that you are modeling through the year, I mean, in multiple earlier questions you've answered the talk on the recovery.
I mean, maybe you can help us understand, I mean, how you have modeled it, in the sense that, is this based on your economic view, or is this based on how you did it last year, when the lockdowns occurred, and then you gave the guidance into the second half of the year, et cetera? So how... I mean, I was just trying to understand what are the drivers of the view, et cetera?
Okay, so let me start with the first one, and the improvement of margin in MS, which you have noticed, is an improvement in percentage. In absolute value, due to a sharp decline, it has slightly decreased. In this, you should expect circa EUR 30 million of synergies from Florida. This is what we communicated. We are well on track on this plan. So this is-
It's fair to say that the vast majority of the synergies indeed flowed into MS. FS was primarily an MS business, so-
Yes.
Yeah.
So that's a good assumption, to believe that a big part has flown into MS, which explains why this improvement is noticeable in spite of a sharp revenue decline. Now, you also mentioned the cost savings, like travel. You say it will come back. Sure, it will, but on the other end, it will also come when there will be some additional revenue. So basically, this is the typical variable cost that will not impact negatively the profitability when it will come back, because it will be in front of additional revenue.
As a matter of fact, if you will, Eric, just well, as a matter of fact, what we've been missing last year, and unfortunately still missing at that point in time, is the part of our most lucrative businesses, the one related to international travel indeed, that are owing to a more value-added services, international credit card. And the costs that will come back with this, are also going to come with a much higher profitability than the typical domestic transactions that are still in the, in the figures these days. So for us, it is clearly a very significant upside on the margin side, the return to a normal level of international travel flow.
Yeah. There is much more upside than downside indeed, to obtain-
I am with you, Sandeep, here. That we were very satisfied, in all fairness, by the performance of MS last year. I think, as in every crisis, we have been digging into the cost base, the reactivity of the cost base to multiple parameters with Marc-Henri and the team. And I think to a certain extent, it is quite an achievement in what is seen generally as a super fixed cost base, the payment business at large, to look at how we could actually adapt to these very adverse circumstances in a fraction of a year, and to pilot the profitability. Of course, thanks to synergy, but also to many further optimization we did, that are going to be long-lasting one.
Maybe on your second question regarding the modeling, as you can imagine, it's always difficult to do such an estimate, so we try to triangulate many data points, indeed, economic data points, recovery models, and more importantly, what we believe is the proper scenario in terms of health situation, which is driving a big part of the economic assumptions. So that's definitely the first angle.
And in order to to allocate the the the impact of this economic macroeconomic environment onto our revenue, indeed, we use our experience on on the the 2020 evolution, and in particular, how much impact we we have we have gained when the the economy has at least started at the end of Q2 and in and in Q3, to indeed model properly the the the positive evolution we we may expect in in in the second part of the year.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Adam Wood from Morgan Stanley. Thank you. You may ask your questions.
Hi, good morning, everybody, and thanks for taking the question. I've got two, please. Maybe just first of all, again, on merchant services and thinking about, you know, particularly the online business, we've obviously had a big pull forward of online activity in 2020. And, you know, I think in the U.S., we were estimating that online might have grown 30%-40% instead of the normal 15%. How much of that is... Well, maybe first of all, as stores reopened and then closed again, could you maybe talk a little bit about how that trajectory shifted? Did you see a pullback in online, or did you see online continue to be strong? And how does that thinking impact and flow into that 2021 guidance?
Are you assuming that that part of the business actually is a bit weaker and grows more slowly, because we are coming up against against that difficult base? Or actually, is the momentum just so strong that that won't be true? And then maybe secondly, again, this is linked on the acquiring side, it looks as if we're getting some more movement in terms of bank decisions on what they're gonna do strategically with acquiring businesses. We've seen some Nordic portfolios sold. We've seen Santander actually move the other way and buy the former Wirecard platform in Europe. Could you maybe just talk a little bit about what you're seeing there strategically? Did you feel there is an acceleration of bank decisions? Has the pandemic accelerated that?
you know, what opportunities do you see as banks make those decisions for Worldline specifically? Thank you.
Hi, Adam. Glad to hear you. Marc-Henri Desportes will take your first question. We'll pick the second one.
Yeah. Maybe just to, so on the online part, so yeah, definitely, you saw it in the volume. We saw a strong acceleration of the online activity and even more so during the stronger part- was growing before from circa 20 to slightly above 30%. So it's more, it's good. It's not yet the vast majority of it, so we still have a strong exposure to the in-store business. And as we shared with you in Q4, and at this beginning of this year, with Germany fully locked, it's waiting on our activities.
We are not, we are not looking forward, planning a strong or any significant move back of the online, because we think that consumer habits are remaining solid. That, that, people and with all these savings accumulated, there will be the pleasure to spend in-store again, but not giving up on some ease and of online consumption. So we have not really factored a decline in this, in this online, and more of the continuation of a good trajectory in this area. And again, we think we are very well positioned, we are. We shared it at the moment of the closing call, and now, number three, global position on this online volume, so this 2.5 billion transactions per year.
We need to upgrade this number, by the way, with the full year results. We are really have a very strong position there. Regarding your second question, Adam, definitely, you made a valid observation, and we see we see many banks actually having engaged strategic review of their merchant acquiring activities, and driving this strategic review to initiating processes, either to sell some of this portfolio or to, at minimum, find partners or set up alliances to co-develop their merchant acquiring franchise. It is true-...
more and more by business consideration, the willingness to stay relevant in their domestic market, to have the right partner and the right technology to keep attracting merchants to their brands, even if they don't operate the business per se, but they are still involved, and so they can pursue building up a banking relationship on top of the pure, merchant acquiring services. So I believe it is a long-lasting trend. And of course, it may happen that one big bank believe they can build such a business by themselves, but it is really the exception, and not at all the rule.
Most of the banks we interact with are more even thinking in the other direction, which is recognizing it is a pure player business, and partnership make absolute sense between a bank and its distribution capacity, and a pure player, technical business knowledge, and an ability, more importantly, and more than ever, to cover properly the online needs of the merchant and the pan-European needs of the very large retail franchising. So for me, definitely it is just a strong confirmation of our views, that the crisis is just making stronger. The crisis, as you all know, has been putting an extra level of stress on the business models of many banks. There is an anticipation of further capital requirement needed to cope with potential bankruptcies in certain geographies.
Of course, banks are piloting their own activities with an extraordinary care, which may drive this type of strategic decisions. So we are ready for that. It is the point, of course, of the creation of the MS FI business unit, Merchant Services for Financial Institution. It has been created precisely to capture this market trend.
Perfectly, that's helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Our next question is from the line of Alexander Faure from BNP Paribas. Thank you.
Hi, good morning. Thanks, thanks very much for squeezing me in. Had a couple of questions, if I may. One is on, I mean, your payment terminal business, and perhaps the assumptions you're baking into the 2021 guidance around that business line. Question number two is, if you could comment perhaps a little bit on the order book and pipeline in TSS and in MTS, please. Thank you very much.
Hello, Alexander. Eric?
Yes. So for the TSS assumption, we have factored. We are confident that the division should be able to deliver at least its non-negative growth rate, being low single digit, with the first half still being probably on the negative side and accelerating in H2.
[Okay. Thank you].
On MS and MTS pipeline, so MS, you know, it's a combination, and we have a lot of different activities. And in particular, the mass market is a business in which you monitor rather the churn, the number of small merchants you onboard, and it's not really a pipeline topic with ISVs or long-lasting sales process.
No, no, sorry. I was, I was talking of, financial services, not current-
Ah, financial services. [crosstalk]
Okay. Financial service [crosstalk]
So in Financial Services, I think we have a good pipeline at the beginning of the year, more towards medium and small deals, with some also significant ones. But I think it's rather distributed to medium and small, which has the advantage of having a better statistical base. So from that point of view, it's a, I would say, a good situation. MTS, at the end of last year, was slowdown in its pipeline, you know, strong exposure to the ticketing and transportation industry, with the lockdown effect. But we observed at the beginning of this year, now people considering the reopening of the economy, and a very good and fast ramp-up at the beginning.
So we are now more commenting the beginning of 2021 of the pipeline in MTS. So overall, it is, I would say, a satisfactory commercial situation. We have invested significantly in reshuffling the sales force of TSS towards the end of 2020 and the start of 2021. We start the year with a good energy.
Very clear. Thank you.
Next question is from the line of Hannes Leitner from UBS. You may ask your question.
Thank you for letting me on. I have also a couple of questions. The first one is also on the terminal business. You showed very strong margins. Can you talk us through a little bit what are the moving parts then for this year? And is this sustainable also in hindsight of the change to a kind of more recurring revenue model? And then coming back to the strategic review, I might have missed it in the beginning, when James asked around that, or when he gave answers to James' question. Was in the strategic review, could you talk us a little bit the working parts here? What are the moving parts, what you are assessing and progressing here? And then the last one is just on the cost measures to fight the pandemic.
You laid out that some of those temporary cost measures might stick. Can you quantify them already? We know you have talked about this throughout the year, but given now it's one year into the pandemic, it would be helpful to understand where you see the cost levers to stick.
Okay. Thank you, Hannes, to give me the opportunity to clarify the margin profile of TSS. Because indeed, as you have understood it, we have had a very good performance in this last part of the year. And this was driven by several points, as I briefly commented earlier. First, a very favorable geographical mix, which is always important in a business like TSS, with strong sales in geographies which are high in terms of contributive margins. So that helped definitely.
We have implemented this year some strong cost control measures in TSS, as in the rest of the organization, which means that we entered Q4 with a very lean cost base. This very lean cost base was applied on a high top line, as Q4 is the highest quarter, and December in particular, the highest month for this kind of business. So there is indeed this effect particular due to the fact that we have only two months of TSS in our consolidated number this year. Which means that there is probably some overperformance versus the normative situation of this TSS business.
That is nonetheless improving year-on-year, I think due to the hard work done by Matthieu and his team in order to progressively bring upward the profitability of this division. That should be as per the projection commented by Ingenico earlier in 2020, and in their plan, heading towards probably 25% of profitability in a kind of normative environment. So you understood it, due to the geographical mix, there might be some better quarter or semester. Some it will be a bit below. But all in all, I think solidly improving year-on-year, the performance of this division through structural actions.
Hannes, you had a question on the strategic review.
Sorry, but maybe I missed it. Can, could you-
Yeah. Yeah, it was... The question was just about the, the kind of, the task force, the moving parts, and the, progress update on that. So a little bit more general detail.
No, no. Sure, sure. Just to share with you where we are. Of course, just to state the obvious, as I mentioned already, we are with Marc-Henri, Matthew's team, of course, to secure the full launch of the proper integration of our own activities, i.e., the former terminal activities Worldline into TSS, and to boil that down into a newly revised business plan for the entity. That was a big task that is now behind us, but an important one. To get there, of course, we needed to have the best possible visibility on the full year 2020 to state the obvious, and the proper projection, of course, on 2021 and beyond, which, as you can guess, has just been completed, of course, since the start of the year.
We've been, of course, fully equipping ourselves with the proper level of advisors in all domains, legal, tax, financial, and so on, to be in a position to assess all the strategic options for business. As you know, we are looking at everything. There is absolutely no taboo to secure the best possible option. And, on top of that, of course, we've been making in-depth analysis of the dynamic of the market, the competitive positioning, and so on. So all that has been really compiled properly. We start to have a very accurate strategic view of the best option for the business, and this is running really as per plan. I cannot really tell it more precisely. This is really a machine that is extremely well-powered and, with a fantastic work, hand in hand, with the great management team of TSS. Okay, that's it.
Did we cover all your question, Hannes? Just to check.
Just the last question was on the cost measures to fight the pandemic. Did you quantify anything on that, what could stick? So what is basically then some, you know, sustainable improvements on the cost side?
I think we are not quantifying it for the year to come, because the big question is: How long will we maintain the full set of cost measures because the top line is impacted? I think the point we showed in the past, we adapt our cost base to the top line situation. When the business is back and you need to accelerate and score, we do. When the business is low, we adapt. I think last year, Ingenico shared some numbers. A significant part of it has been embedded in a lean, I would say, a new lean position of the business, that we can expect to maintain.
But what are more variable, temporary, or linked to the top line situation, we will maintain as long as needed. So what I would-
... I would say to simplify your point.
Perfect. Thank you.
All right, next question. Let's turn the line now to Paul Kratz from Jefferies. Thank you.
Just a couple of questions from my end. I think, you know, maybe starting with the on-demand margin guidance, could you help us, you know, maybe understand the upside case or maybe the sensitivity to growth rates of your on-demand margin guidance? So let's say if you were to come in better than mid-single digits, would that 200 basis points maybe come in slightly better, just reflecting underlying organic operating leverage? The second question I also had is, when we really think of M&A into 2021 and beyond, is that really dependent on the liquidity event, you know, say, let's say, a sale of the terminal business? And then obviously, with what we've seen in the French market around, BPCE buying up in a Natixis minority, does that maybe change a bit your calculus with respect to that market?
And then finally, maybe a longer-term and more strategic question. I mean, when we think of all the revenues that you've lost that have been linked to both travel and travel, travel-related expenditure, how should we really think about 2022? Should that be a year where growth should continue to accelerate, that will be ahead of usually the normative growth rate within merchant services? I mean, any commentary kind of on the longer-term growth trajectory would be helpful.
Yeah, sure. Hi, Paul. I will give the mic to Eric in a minute. But, of course, on your last question in particular, I can't wait being with you all, hopefully in person. That's why we are also going to position our capital market day in H2, because we want it to be really a physical event, where we could also showcase many innovations that the group has been delivering. But indeed, spontaneously, when we project ourselves, let's call it in a normal post-COVID world, and 2022 hopefully will be exactly the definition of a normal post-COVID world.
We anticipate, of course, growth to be extremely strong in the group due to the comeback of all the key elements that are driving our top line, plus all the benefit of the structural acceleration of the shift from cash to cashless. So all that should indeed support a strong growth ambition from the group in the medium term. But let's first navigate 2021. Let's have the capital market day, where we will be more precise on our longer-term ambition. Eric?
Yeah, I think your first question was related to profitability upside in case of positive momentum on the top line. I think that's definitely the case. You know that we have some significant operating leverage. What I can tell you is that the level of margin we expect is quite well documented, relying also on the strong synergies we expect, that Marc-Henri has described in his presentation. We are also in a position to adjust our costs in case the situation would not happen exactly as we expect in our scenario. So we know that...
I believe that we have a guidance which is quite solid in terms of profitability, with if indeed there is more revenue for operating leverage, potentially to do a bit better as usual, yeah.
Regarding your second question regarding is M&A depending on liquidity event, as you know, as for years, we've been having very different ways of shaping large M&A transactions over the past years. Equens was a contribution in kind of our assets within the assets of the former Equens, and this was basically a cash-free transaction for years until we bought back the minority shareholders of equensWorldline. SIX Payment Services was a share-based transaction for most of it. Ingenico is also a share-based transaction for the largest part of it, with a significant cash component in this one for our part. And we have been also shaping JVs, like the one with ANZ at 51-49.
So, I mean, the toolbox of Worldline to accommodate a large-scale transaction is not really making us dependent on any event that would accelerate short-term de-leverage, even if, of course, if this happens, it just reopen, even at a wider level, the possibility to make a pure cash-based transaction very short term. So I think we have ample opportunities to shape any transaction. And the way we've been seeing the latest evolution, and you probably saw the same, because I know you guys are following very closely our industry, that most of the last deals, particularly of large magnitudes, have been basically relatively cash-free. And it's true for us, and it's true for all our peers in the US and in Europe, so.
And maybe just to comment on the BPCE, and it takes this deal, if that changes maybe your outlook on the French market.
Well, I don't want to comment on any particular situation. I would say that anything that makes something simpler is good for potential discussion at a point in time. I mean, when you have a cascade of companies, and you need to align minority shareholders, majority shareholders, it is always more complex. But keep that comment as a general comment, not particularly related to BPCE.
Perfect. That was, that's very helpful. Thank you.
And by the way, I think it is. We've been already exceeding the time slot, so we will take operator only one last question, please.
... Okay, the next question is on the line of Tammy Qiu. You may ask your question; [it's] from Berenberg. Thank you.
Excuse me.. . I just have a very easy one at the end. Your online growth-
You're kind, Tammy.
Because I guess it's, it's passing the hour already. So, your online growth has been very strong, since COVID lockdown, and has really accelerated through time. So I wonder, is that actually because of your additional, merchant wins, or is that actually your merchant has been growing their online, given COVID effect? So then how should I be thinking about it once the economy opens towards the second half of this year? Should I be expecting that growth slowing down, or you can continue to have more merchant wins, so that growth level will stay at a high level, even past the open up?
I think it's both. It's clearly a combination of the growth of the online merchants due to the switch to online transaction and the change of habit in consumer linked to lockdown. And as I said before, we believe this change in habits will largely resist the reopening of the economy, which will benefit more from the saving for the in-store consumption. And so I said, it's both. It's this change of habit and the wins of merchants. In general, due to the very strong positioning now of a portfolio solution and combining Ingenico and Worldline, and I think both were doing well in 2020.
And on also gaining some customer from the Wirecard collapse that needed a new operator. I mentioned Olymp in my presentation. Aldi Süd was another example. And we have revealed in concluding the telco operators. I'm sorry, Aldi Süd, I'm not sure it was primary in store. But online, we won also a significant customer. So you have both, and we expect that you will have a continuation of a good momentum from what was the normal growth of the merchants, and a benefit from the won customers throughout the year 2021.
Okay, thank you.
So, ladies and gentlemen, many thanks for attending our conf call today in this very interesting times. Looking forward really to meet you in person. I am missing actually the cold sandwiches in the black cars in the streets of Manhattan and London, so I can't wait to renew with these pleasures. That would definitely signal the start of a back to normal life, and very strong growth performance for everyone in the payment sector, and in particular for us. Many thanks, guys. Look forward to seeing you. Bye.
Thank you. That concludes our call for today. You may all disconnect. Thank you all for participating.