With this move, Worldline demonstrates its strong commitment to supporting the development of the Fintech community by applying a true collaborative approach.

Worldline’s Booster Program for Fintechs was announced by Deputy CEO Marc-Henri Desportes in his speech at last night’s opening conference of the e-Payments Challenge in Frankfurt. This co-innovation event is one of the main elements of Worldline’s Fintech engagement strategies. It brings together some 150 participants from Fintech Start-ups, Worldline experts and industry leaders to co-innovate and shape the future of payments. The other elements are Worldline’s developer portal that comprises a suite of API (Application Programme Interfaces) for easy connection to Worldline’s technology assets, and the extensive Payment Business Network under Worldline’s Alliances and Partnerships model which is made available for the Start-ups to use.

Helping Start-ups accelerate their business

Worldline’s new “e-Payments Booster Program” is an enablement program designed specifically for Start-ups and Fintechs who want to accelerate their business and incorporate trusted and scalable payment functionalities. By plugging into Worldline’s e-Payments Booster Program, Start-ups, often owner-run, can fully focus on developing their business idea without having to spend their valuable time on understanding the complexities of payments. Through this program, Start-ups will benefit from:

- Minimal effort for set-up through APIs, a quick and easy on-boarding process backed by local Worldline support;
- Maximum bandwidth of reachable target payers & payees, thanks to a wide range of payments methods, functionalities and channels;
- Flexibility to choose the appropriate set of payment functions for specific business needs;
- Adequate pricing in-line with the challenges of an emerging business.

Emmanuel Ruiz, founder and CEO of Copsonic, says « We are participating in the e-Payments Challenge for the second time now, and really appreciate Worldline’s commitment in the field of co-innovation. For a Start-up like us, being able to easily connect to the trusted and established payments platform from Worldline literally means that we can preserve our energy and agility for developing our business ideas. »

Online payments made easy
Worldline will start the “e-Payments Booster Program” by offering Start-ups easy access to the acceptance of e-commerce payments, which reflects the needs of Start-ups as the vast majority of new businesses are directly or indirectly operating in the online marketing space. This is also confirmed by the 26 Fintechs participanting in the e-Payments Challenge.

Under this initiative, Worldline enables Start-ups to integrate online payments through a particularly easy set-up via the APIs on the Worldline developer portal, a fast on-boarding process and local support. In relatively no time and seamless way, young companies can accept the full range of payment methods including Visa, VPAY, Mastercard, Maestro, American Express, Dinners Club, Discover, JCB, UnionPay, Alipay, Twint) and also embed DCC (Dynamic Currency Conversion), which is indispensable for any international business.

Online Payments is only the first step. In the near future, Worldline plans to expand the fast-lane access for newcomers in the business to a wider area of services in Acquiring and Card Issuing as well as Third-Party Provider (TPP) services.

Special support for the Fintech Community
The first 25 Fintechs joining the “e-Payments Booster Program” will receive a Worldline subsidy in the form of 10.000 free transactions for the first six months of their business. This support is limited to companies of not more than 40 employees and currently available in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Switzerland.

Marc-Henri Desportes, Deputy CEO of Worldline, states: « We see tremendous value in our cooperation with Fintechs and Start-ups and wanted to give this year’s e-Payments-Challenge a particular edge by launching our dedicated support program to emerging companies. With the e-Payments Booster Program, we give every Start-up and Fintech a kick-start to take their business to a next level, thanks to a direct and sponsored access to our platforms. As strong believers in open innovation, we decided to give 25 young companies a free half year of online transactions. »

The e-Payments Challenge is taking place until the 18th of September in Frankfurt. 14 challenges have been set for the participating Fintechs - each submitted and organised by a Worldline client, amongst them are Erste Group, Accor and OP Finance Group. 26 pre-selected Fintech Start-ups will take the opportunity to partner with Worldline to scale their business, pitch their solutions to Worldline’s clients and establish important business relationships.

Kristian Luona, Head of OP Lab at OP Finance Group, says: « OP has been in business for 110 years and does not take the future for granted. Building a future without partners is impossible. It requires collaboration and joint effort. In that respect we appreciate the e-Payments Challenge as a vehicle to meet interesting Fintechs and initiate partnerships that really create value.”