Good day, and welcome to the Worldline Q1 2023 Revenue Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. If you have a question, please press star one one on your telephone, and you will hear a message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw that question, press star one one again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gilles Grapinet, Worldline CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. This is Gilles Grapinet speaking. Thank you for attending today's Worldline conference call on our first quarter 2023 revenue. As usual, I will start this presentation providing you some key highlights of the quarter and also some comments on our commercial dynamics across the business lines. Marc -Henri, our Deputy CEO, will present you the landmark strategic partnership with Crédit Agricole we announced last week. Hereafter, Grégory, our Group CFO, will present you in detail our first quarter revenue performance before a wrap up from myself for the conclusion before opening the Q&A session. Let me start first by some organic growth comments. We enjoyed a solid start of the year as our first quarter is showing again a solid revenue momentum with 9.2% organic growth at group level.
Merchant services is posting its sixth double-digit growth quarter in a row, with close to 13% growth in Q1. This is worth nothing as it was achieved while continuing to absorb in this division the last quarterly negative impact of the complete stop of our e-commerce activities with Russia that we did stop end of February 2022 as part of the implementation of international sanctions. Financial Services and Mobility & e-Transactional Services are on their end delivering as per their anticipated 2023 trajectory profile. From a strategic standpoint, I am very proud of the announcement made last week with the entry into exclusive discussions with Crédit Agricole to create together a major player in merchant services in the French payment market.
Marc-Henri will come back more precisely on some details of this project. I would like to make some preliminary comments by connecting some dots here. Over the last two years, I consistently shared with you, your community, that after the Ingenico integration, Worldline would have one of the best and most comprehensive payment technology stack in Europe. We know we have great products. We need and we want more distribution for reinforcing the long-term organic growth potential of Worldline. Consequently, our strategic M&A focus has shifted with a clear priority given in the recent past, as you heard me many times saying, to opportunities leveraging our global platform and extending our distribution power, our geographic reach, and enriching our portfolio with additional local payment scheme capabilities that we sometimes don't have.
As you know, it is a key asset to be relevant in the EU markets as they are structured today. We also shared with you that a time would probably come where we would be in a position to agree with some leading banks, feeling the pressure of the market transformation, that we could not buy and cash their merchant books, that we would agree with them to trade and combine on one hand our access to their local distribution power and market intimacy with and in exchange, on the other hand, of the right for our local bank partner to benefit in its country from the Worldline differentiating product portfolio. This is exactly the review one should have about the Worldline-Crédit Agricole remarkable partnership announced last week, where we kill actually four birds with one stone.
1. We will gain access to a new and very sizable commercial acquiring market, France, so far totally untapped by the Worldline merchant services division, and that will leverage fully our global assets. 2. We will gain access to the most powerful local distribution network for our products and services for years. 3. We will gain access to the powerful French domestic scheme, Carte Bancaire, through our partner, Crédit Agricole group, both for the local and international merchant needs. 4. As it is a contribution in kind, we keep our financial firepower fully available for other important upcoming opportunities we currently have in our pipeline. For Worldline, this is, if any, a real strategic breakthrough, particularly smartly structured.
All these achievements are paving solidly the way to a successful execution of the full year of 2023 guidance and our midterm growth ambition that we, of course, both confirm today. Now I want to give you more colors on the commercial dynamic. Coming to the Q1 significant merchant wins, upsells, and partnerships within merchant services. I must say the both reflect the relevance of our solutions and the success of our orchestration strategy based on our solid product offering. Globally, we have delivered again significant wins and partnerships on both in-store and cross-border online, increasing our net-market share with new merchants, also an increase of our share of wallet with existing merchants. Our payment orchestration offering has been key in several deals, as well as the verticalization offering we have developed and the ability to leverage quickly the newly acquired companies such as SoftPOS .
Let me comment some of them. In online cross-border payments, the flagship win of the quarter for merchant services is definitively the win of Turkish Airlines, one of the top 10 largest airline in the world. This is also one of the largest merchant services contract ever signed. After the win of Lufthansa a couple of quarters back, it is a new showcase of Worldline online cross-border capabilities and of our travel vertical expertise. Also in cross-border online, our payment orchestration platform has been key for the win of FinTech, but as well as increasing our share of wallet with Zimpler or Trust Payments. On the in-store and omni-channel side, I'm proud to mention the win of Correos, in particular.
The combination of Worldline acquiring, coupled with our new SoftPOS solution, providing a full all-in-one and integrated offering has been key for this client with the leading postal services company in Spain to equip thousands of postmen. Regarding the partnerships, our unique payment facilitator solution, coupling, acquiring, and DCC product has been key to increase our share of wallet with Wallee, a very successful partner. Overall, a very successful quarter with a sustained commercial momentum. As usual, on the next line, I share with you the MSV growth of Q1 2023, which is showing a steady dynamic at +13%, reaching for the first time EUR 100 billion in a quarter. It was at +11% in store and +19% in online.
You can see with the pink curve in the chart, we continue to see a solid dynamic at the beginning of Q2 with a solid trend in MSV expansion fueled by both in-store and online activities. To conclude this first part, let's focus on the financial services and MeTS wins and partnership of the quarter. Regarding financial services, the quarter has been quite dynamic, with notably the win of the BNP Paribas contract, where Worldline will provide a solution combining electronic signatures of SDD mandates with open banking-based account validation to reduce SEPA direct debit fraud. Also a partnership in the promising SEA region with FinTech for financial institution and merchants, combining Worldline financial services capabilities in acquiring, issuing, processing, account payments, and digital services, and the FinTech payment platform.
On MeTS, it's worth to mention the win with SNCF, the French railway operator, to whom Worldline will provide an omni-channel cloud contact center based on our in-house contact solution to manage, in the future, 11 million secure customer interaction annually indicated. Marc-Henri will now take the floor to guide you through the strategic partnership we signed with Crédit Agricole on the French market.
Thank you, Gilles. Good morning to you all. Happy to drive you through this new strategic partnership we have announced last week. We are indeed very proud to announce this strategic alliance in an attractive market benefiting from a strong momentum in digital payments. Let's indeed start with a global overview of the French market, which in our industry is a very dynamic and attractive market. It is the second-largest economy in continental Europe. It's simply the largest e-payment market in Europe with a circa EUR 700 billion MSV growing mid-single digit. It is also a market where use of cash is still high at circa 40% of current volumes, representing a massive growth opportunity.
Last but not least, French e-payment market is dominated by card payments, and in particular, by the local scheme, Carte Bancaire, as it is a brand of choice for circa 80% of the card transaction, an acquirer needs an access to Carte Bancaire to scale on this market, and we did not have it so far. This is why the access to Carte Bancaire is so important for us, while Crédit Agricole needs the new momentum of a pure player with international capabilities. Together, we can bring the right solution at scale for the biggest EU market. Regarding our ambition, with Crédit Agricole, we have the perfect fit to create a major player in France. The long-term joint company is based on a shared vision for delivering value to merchants through a perfect combination.
Worldline will bring global scale, best-in-class payment solution, in particular for cross-border payments and international payment means, but also in the field of e-commerce and omni-channel. We will also come with recognized sales and marketing capabilities and successful track record for integration and migration. On the other side, Crédit Agricole will bring the leading position in France with a large bank distribution network, local expertise, and strong merchant relationship with adjacent banking products. Let's be clear, we are talking about a bank which has circa 16,000 banking advisor for SMEs. This is a huge firepower to analyze the SME market in France, in which Crédit Agricole already have 1/4 of the market. As for bigger customers, we will now be able to offer a full service solution in the biggest European market, which is key for pan-European RFPs.
Here, we definitely have the conviction that we are together in a position to double the growth of the market and to create a major player in France. In terms of the coming key steps regarding the partnership implementation. During the period 2023/2024, we will have a joint investment phase of circa EUR 80 million, equally financed by Worldline and Crédit Agricole for the product localization and joint company implementation. In parallel, as from closing at the end of 2023, we'll start to leverage the access to the Cartes Bancaires scheme with all large accounts to generate added revenues at Worldline MS. While Crédit Agricole will be able to offer our existing products to the mass market. Both revenue streams will be recognized by Worldline and Crédit Agricole on their own.
Early 2025, we will execute the full implementation of the joint company, starting to generate revenue and margin under its own license. Worldline will contribute upfront at this date, its French merchant acceptance contract. While Crédit Agricole will start to contribute progressively their merchant acquiring business. The joint company will be 100% consolidated by Worldline. You can understand through these steps that the overall structuring of the deal is a balanced contribution in kind. To end this part, I have four key messages on this announcement. This alliance provides to Worldline a powerful access to a significant market share of the largest European market. It represents a unique value creation opportunity through the combination of Worldline payment expertise and Crédit Agricole distribution network.
From an inorganic standpoint, in a few quarter, we'll start jointly expanding our high-performing Worldline merchant acquiring franchise into this very large French market. Our joint company is set to be the French market leader, like PAYONE already is in Germany. We do this transaction to create for Worldline an important and brand-new long-term organic growth engine from 2025 onwards. From a more strategic standpoint, it highlights the appetite of the largest and most successful banks in Europe to leverage our leading PayTech position in their home market. We are convinced this strategic landmark transaction is a cornerstone for Worldline's positioning as the global payments partner of choice for the largest bank. Finally, Worldline flexibility in terms of deal structuration made the full difference to score. The balanced contribution of business preserves our balance sheet to save important incoming opportunities that we have in our pipeline.
I will now give the floor to Grégory to present you our Q1 financial performance.
Thank you, Marc-Henri. Good morning, everyone. Let me start with an overview of our Q1 performance. Overall, we're posting 9.2% organic growth and EUR 1.1 billion in revenues. MS now represents 71% of our group's revenues. Remain well anchored in double-digit zone. With a 12.6% increase versus Q1 2022 in acceleration versus Q4, driven by very strong double-digit growth in commercial acquiring. Financial services was up 2.3% as expected. Following the signing of ING at the end of last year, we continue to register good commercial developments. Finally, on MeTS, revenues were stable with a healthy underlying growth despite the French Telecom contract re-insourcing at the end of H1 2022. Let me now detail these numbers by business line on the following slides.
Turning to MS, revenues reached EUR 758 million in Q1, up 12.6% despite the effect of the Russian sanctions, which impact our financials for the last time. This Russian impact cost us approximately 2% in MS growth percentage points this quarter. In commercial acquiring, all segments and geographies drove the double-digit growth, whether it be in mass market activities or vis-à-vis large retailers. Also, regarding new countries like Italy or Greece, they're enjoying a very good performance driven both by new customers onboarding and steady cash to card conversion. Payment acceptance grew single digits and would be high single excluding Russia. The performance comes from digital customers who continue to grow solidly, benefiting in particular from the continuous recovery of the travel vertical. In global sales and vertical, performance remains steady, both in terms of new merchant wins and upsell with existing merchants.
Last, on digital services, activities grew mid-single-digit with strong performance in our key countries driven by large retailers. Now moving on financial services and MeTS. Starting with FS, revenues reached EUR 228 million, representing organic growth of 2.3%. With a positive performance driven by good dynamics in Benelux, France, and Finland, solid growth in account payments, and finally, softer performance in digital banking despite volume increase in new business more than offset by softer performance in the Netherlands. Last, I'd like to mention that our pipeline of new projects remains solid across the continent. To conclude with MeTS, revenues reached EUR 85 million, flat versus last year as expected. The underlying growth was good, driven by trusted digitization and e-ticketing, both benefiting from increased volumes as well as new projects.
As already mentioned, this was compensated by a large telco contract we're outsourcing, the impact of which will be over by the end of H1. Let me hand over to Gilles to conclude.
Thank you, Greg. Moving to the key takeaways of this quarter. The 3 key messages I would like you to keep in mind are the following 1: a solid start of the year, a steady commercial performance, and a very solid execution of the strategic roadmap. A solid start of the year, which is comforting our full year 2023 growth trajectory with merchant services solidly anchored in the double-digit growth territory, and FS and NETS delivering as planned and targeting a growth acceleration in H2 2023. Second, a steady commercial performance with numerous commercial successes, with new large merchants at merchant services materializing with the double-digit growth in our acquiring MSV, while FS and MeTS signed several new wins to feed their future growth.
Third, the execution of our strategic roadmap to expand our reach, scale, and distribution channels across Europe, and more precisely in new geographies. The strategic partnership with Crédit Agricole is a landmark announcement that adds another layer to anchor our merchant services growth on the double-digit growth territory for long in the mid-to-long-term perspective. There is more into it and into this transaction, let me expand the perspective a bit here. This announcement is also a proof point of the speed and the depth of the structural changes which are taking place as we speak in EU payments. The banks, including now the biggest ones, are all revising their strategies to adapt to our fast-moving industry. The moment of decision-making is coming for a number of them, probably in the coming quarters.
They also recognize, as it is clearly shown in the Crédit Agricole announcement, the value of partnering with a tech player of scale like Worldline, EU-born, and bank-friendly. We believe that our EU playground is more favorable than ever for our consolidation and bank partnership strategy. It only requires to be able to flexibly structure, meet to measure transactions and alliances that will help each of these leading domestic banks to meet their own business objectives or agenda points. Worldline has this track record. It is exactly what we demonstrate again with the Crédit Agricole partnership, that we are best positioned and ready to capture fully the exceptional window of strategic opportunity that is opening as we speak.
I close this presentation by confirming our full year 2023 guidance as follow: 8%-10% revenue organic growth, an OMDA margin improvement above 100 basis points, and finally, an OMDA conversion rate into free cash flow in between 46%-48%. Thank you very much for your attention. I am now ready with Marc-Henri and Grégory to take your questions.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw that question, please press star one one again. Please stand by while we open the first question. Your first question comes from Alastair Nolan at Morgan Stanley. Alastair, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Great. Morning, everyone. Just firstly on the Crédit Agricole announcement, can you maybe just provide a little bit more detail around what you expect in terms of revenue and OMDA contribution and kind of over what timeline that might be? Just secondly, on the merchant services division, can you talk a little bit more around how you're thinking about growth for the remainder of the year? Can you remind us when the full benefit of the price increases that you've previously discussed kicks in? Thank you.
Hello, Alastair. Marc-Henri?
Yeah, I can take the first question regarding the CA deal and the way it brings revenue. As you can see, it's a company that will be fully operational by early 2025 after the ramp-up phase. From 2025 onward, it is expected to be circa 1% accretive on Worldline MS growth rate. I'll give you an order of magnitude. Objective mid- to long term is to create something similar to PAYONE in terms of size. At this stage, we cautiously assume that the joint venture should be in the range of EUR 300 million-EUR 400 million of revenue.
Four to five years after full, after full implementation. Well, that's big, big picture. In terms of profitability at that time, it will be similar to the overall MS profitability, but it will start with a ramp-up phase, where it will be lower and progressively catch up and be at the level of MS profitability after the set up. That's to give you a bit the order of magnitude of what we are talking about. You want to Grégory to take on MS growth?
Sure. In terms of MS growth, good morning, Alastair. What we expect is good progress this year. In particular, as you may remember, this is the last quarter where we have the impact of the Russian corridor closure at beginning of Q1 last year. So normally we should be better off going forward. Plus the repricing efforts are, I would say, halfway through and progressing well. We should be done towards the end of HQ Q3, and therefore H2 should be stronger.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Please stand by for your next question. Your next question comes from James Goodman at Barclays. James, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Morning. Thanks very much, congratulations on the Crédit Agricole deal. Just digging into that one a little bit more, you've explained very clearly the upsides to structuring it the way that you have done, but I'm just curious, you know, what sort of prevented you from, or from they from wanting to traditionally structure this? More of an actual carve-out of their merchant book, whereby you actually, you know, purchase, I guess the upfront, sort of revenue contribution or at least, you know, 50% of it.
Given this sort of very gradual migration, I suppose of Credit Agricole merchants to the JV, if there are other opportunities in France, if that market starts to commercialize more quickly now, and can you talk just more generally around sort of exclusivity with Credit Agricole and also any implications there on the sort of processing side or, you know, processing relationships in France? That's on Credit Agricole. Just secondly, Gilles, you mentioned the M&A strategy, you know, has shifted, and clearly, this doesn't tie up any capital on your side. Does that mean that maybe alternative deployments like something like a buyback would be now more likely, given this is the way that increasingly we might see markets like France commercializing?
Thank you.
Hi, James. Many thanks for your comment. We will try to of course answer all of your questions. First, why has it been structured this way? First I would like to say because it was the will of both parties. Let me start by that, both on the Crédit Agricole side and Worldline. We found very clearly when we were aligning on our strategic vision for what we could do together on this market, that it would be the right way to do it. There could be also some other elements that you can also take into consideration. It is not one integrated banking group. We talk here about Crédit Agricole Federation, which has 39 regional banks, which are full-blown banks with their own bank license, plus the LCL nationwide network.
Of course, some mutualized services at the group level that are supporting these entities. A carve-out of the existing activities would have been a gigantic undertaking. That's of course number 1, and we don't believe It could have helped a lot to focus gigantically on such an effort, while the point is all about creating additional growth for both parties. That's number 1. Number 2, as I mentioned, we have a phenomenal payment technology stack, fully complete. We are not that much looking after onboarding new modules, existing infrastructure if we can avoid. The point is really to feed our global platform with new long-term growth opportunities to get the maximum operating leverage once the business will be up and running. That was also a good reason to really look at it more forward-looking rather than starting from scratch.
Last, given also the level of activity we anticipate, and it connects to your third question somehow, regarding the M&A agenda of the group. We believe that the ability also to deploy cash on other opportunities where cash will probably be required, given what we understand from some banks' agenda in Europe today, it was also important. We could find, as I mentioned, a fantastic way to smartly structure our access to the French market with an ideal partner, extremely motivated. The access to the CB card scheme without having to use the balance sheet for that will be used, I hope, and I expect more importantly given what I see in the coming semesters for other large potential opportunities with banks. My last comment here is if you...
I just want to flag that because it is always important to make sure we share the same vision. As you know, I tend to say very often that the consolidation in Europe has already went through some waves. Wave one was the acquisition of the neutralized bank-owned platform like Equens or Nets, et cetera, that ultimately were sold by the banks, but they were belonging to numerous banks in a given market. That is largely behind us. Wave two was the combination of the players born from wave one.
Worldline and SIX and Nets and Nexi and SIA, et cetera. Over the recent past, I told you, we are in wave three, where individual banks that did not brought their asset together in a mutualized platform somewhere in Europe are now starting to look for partnership alliances or disengage and sell sometimes straight away. It is exactly where we are. Crédit Agricole is a very good example, structured a bit differently of the execution of wave three, like Eurobank was or like Axepta Italy was. We look with a lot of appetite for this wave three. Keep in mind that still half of the business is with these banks, so it is also a very important signal with the Crédit Agricole transaction of the important acceleration of this wave three in Europe.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. Please stand by for your next question. Your next question comes from Alexandre Faure at BNP Paribas Exane. Alexandre, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you very much for letting me on. Just wondering if you could comment a little bit on volume growth in merchant services by country and which countries you'd expect to lead the growth over the remainder of the year. I had a second question on the integration of past M&A, if you could update us on the progress made there and how we should think of associated costs and the timing of those in H1 and H2. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Alex. Maybe I will answer your question starting from the integration of M&A because it directly correlates to the growth by country. What we observe is that we have a very strong dynamic in Italy. The acquisition we did of BNL, the joint venture we form with BNL, we observe, we think we are maybe 3 times the market growth. It's really a super dynamic. We just, by the way, closed the Desio deal, and thanks to this deal, now we are migrating like in the range of 200-300 merchant per day. It's a very dynamic execution.
In Greece, it's also a high-teen momentum. It's very, very supportive. A bit softer in Australia as we are relying on an outdated bank platforms. We had to bring our new platform, which is live now as we speak, since the beginning of April. It was a huge project execution, but it came on time. Now we are in a position to really bounce back. Overall, to the rest of the market, it dynamic. A bit less in the Nordics, where the cash to card, you know, is less strong. Very good feel in Germany, in Switzerland, and in Benelux.
Overall, we experience a good momentum over these various countries, which are the main acquiring contributors.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Please stand by for your next question. Your next question comes from Hannes Leitner at Jefferies. Hannes, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes, thanks for letting me on. Could you maybe disaggregate the merchant service growth? You touched upon a little bit around the headwind on merchants, from the Russian corridor, but maybe then thinking about, scheme fees, for example. Could you talk a little bit about the M&A pipeline, what's out there, and how close are you to close anything?
Thank you, Hannes. In terms of MS growth, what we still see is solid underlying trends and operational developments with cash-to-cards trends, market share gains on new and existing merchants, as well as a good trend on our merchant count increase. As I mentioned, we're confident on the double-digit trajectory for 2023. In terms of scheme fees, what we can comment on is that for us it is less than a 1% impact at MS level. This means that our net revenue as we declare it and net revenue excluding scheme fees, the delta is around 1% or less, meaning that growth for Q1 on MS is still around 11.5%-12%. Thank you, Greg.
Regarding M&A pipeline, indeed, we have quite a steady level of activity. Hard, of course, as always to predict, on the potential, of course, outcome of such discussions or timeline. There are clearly some processes driven by some banks that expect to land their decision and announcement somewhere, of course, in the course of 2023. After Crédit Agricole being just announced, I must say that we are also very happy with what we already are making for 2023. Regarding more larger bank opportunities, hard to predict, but things will definitely be topics on which we expect to work significantly in the course of 2023. Depending on the bank decision-making timeline, it may happen, well, let's say maybe early 2024.
That is not within totally our hands. Of course, we have then a bunch of, I would say, small to mid-size bolt-on acquisitions, either in technology or with a smaller bank portfolio that may happen also more as we run the company in the coming quarters. Well, I believe I have not the slightest doubt that the M&T Multiline line will have quite a record year in 2023 and probably in 2024.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. Please stand by for your next question. Your next question comes from Tammy Qiu at Berenberg. Tammy, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi, sorry. I was muted. Sorry. Thank you for taking my question. Firstly, from cross-border transactions. Let's say if second half of this year, the travel from Asia, such as China, is coming back to Europe, is that going to improve your mix or help you from a margin perspective at all, or that's already included in your guidance?
Hi, Tammy. You were breaking up a little bit at the beginning, but if I'm correct, and I understand, you were trying to capture if the China travel would come back into Europe, would it be a positive somehow, both to the revenue and potentially the margin?
Yes.
The answer is yeah. The answer is yes. Clearly, if it were to come back significantly in terms of volume, we would have revenue impact. We were, before the COVID crisis, ranked number one in UnionPay, WeChat Pay, and Alipay acquiring volumes. We had a good exposure, and we were well. We worked with them to accept their payment solution over various geographies. Certainly that would help. The structure of this transaction are also relative from a margin point of view. It's a bit soon to tell if this will come back at speed. We are not seeing significant volumes yet.
We hear that books, planes start to be booked and that the merchants that work in this domain have significant hopes. I guess we would like to see it more concretely. Let's see what happens in the coming quarters.
Okay, thank you. A follow-up on the transaction volume, please. Yesterday, one of the U.S. peer of you has been saying that they started to see transaction volume slowing down a bit around the corner, and they have seen a switch back to non-discretionary. Have you seen similar trend recently at all?
Well, no, not massively. You could see the MSV volume growth, it varies a bit over time. We had also a slightly higher volume growth in some of the past quarters. What we are seeing, in Europe, we are not experiencing any shift of consumption that is a sign of recession as per our data points. You know, we don't only have acquirer data points. We can also look at the issuing volumes and if people have transaction blocked for lack of funds, which can be also an indicator that they are experiencing difficulties to spend. As we speak, it's not something we are seeing yet.
And, maybe, as we are talking discretionary, non-discretionary spend, the level of travel, the activity of the travel industry remains very high despite high price in this industry. People are ready to dedicate significant budget to this, I would say, discretionary spend.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Please stand by for your next question. Your next question comes from Frederic Boulan at the Bank of America. Frederic, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. If I can ask a quick question around the Crédit Agricole deal. With the structure you have in place, to what degree you can leverage your existing platform, online platform and the kind of single delivery model in versus more integrated approaches you've done in the past when you integrate merchant books. You talked about the benefit it's giving you with the access to Cartes Bancaires network. Can you discuss how that's differentiated versus some competitors that have access that license through third parties? Is it, is this really unique versus some of the next gen players? Maybe a point around macro assumptions. You're saying your guidance is based on this unchanged macro scenario.
Can you comment whether you're seeing, you know, we are a couple of, like a month through Q2, any positive or negative signs in terms of trends and activity you're seeing in the business that give you confidence that, you know, we're still in that potential scenario?
Maybe I can elaborate on the very first question. Clearly, the way the deal is structured, it's fully leveraging our technology platform. It is our online platforms we are going to leverage and push to the merchants. It is also for the core of the activity, our processing platforms that we will leverage. We will add Cartes Bancaires, which is already available for some for front-end assets but not for end-to-end acquiring.
We'll be able to integrate Cartes Bancaires in our technology platform and provide the full benefit of scale on this specific scheme. As we are talking about massive scale on the European market, that will be very differentiating. Very differentiating because we are talking about billions of transactions and billions of transactions that will be live on our platform for this scheme. Which will make us super competitive for the most demanding merchants on the French market. You know that we already in terms of acceptance of the very technical layer of the transaction, we are already serving a lot of them. It's a very, very powerful combination in terms of leveraging of our platforms.
Well, which is particularly coming from the fact, just to add 1 note here, Frederic, which is coming from the fact that the joint company will have directly in its book all the largest merchants in acquiring coming from Crédit Agricole, the one that are bringing the big volumes, which is the big differentiating points, of course, with all the other guys that are, of course, adding volume that not even compared by a tenth or a twentieth versus the volume we are talking about here. It is, of course, the scale game that is also behind the way this transaction has been structured. Well, which is a partnership, of course, which is only taking place in the merchant services space of Worldline, as you know.
Of course, for the financial services activity, in France, we pursue, of course, growing the business with all other banks, because I realize that of course we are free to fully, of course, deliver our services to any other banks that is interested in the space.
Finally, you were asking around macroeconomic assumptions and what we're seeing in terms of economic environment. So far so good. Remains the motto. What we're seeing is no inflection point yet. As you could see from the MSV curve, we're still growing healthily, so no sign to the downside or to the upside yet. We are within our band of assumption from the beginning of the year.
Thank you, Greg.
Thank you.
It is now time to close this call. I would like to thank you for being with us this morning and look forward to our nearest opportunity to interact all together. Many thanks, and have a good day.
Thank you.
That concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.