U.K. – CMA Paypal/iZettle Takeover

U.K. – CMA Paypal/iZettle Takeover

On 12 June 2019, UK CMA confirmed it had cleared PayPal’s completed takeover of rival mobile payments company iZettle after an in-depth, Phase 2, investigation.

  • While iZettle and PayPal are 2 of the largest suppliers of mPOS devices, the firms'
    customers are also willing to switch to more traditional style point of sale devices.
  • Two largest suppliers of services to smaller merchants, Worldpay and Barclaycard, account for almost 60% at present and will continue to constrain merged company.
  • The merged company will also face significant competition from other mPOS-only players, such as Square and SumUp, which have both grown significantly recently.
  • In omni-channel services, the CMA found that iZettle would only have been able to develop offering slowly, would have stayed marginal player for foreseeable future.
  • CMA also found other significant competitors would be more important constraints.