Nexi Spa Azioni Ordinarie

Good afternoon. This is the Course Call Conference Operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the NEXI 9 Months 2022 Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Paolo Bertoluzzo, CEO of Nexi. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning or good afternoon to all of you, and welcome to our call for results for third quarter 2022. As usual, I'm here with Bernardo Mingrone, our CFO. Stefania Mantegazza is leading investor relations, and a few other members of our team as usual for the third quarter I will give you a short business update then I will hand over to Bernardo that will cover our financial results and then we will have space for your questions. Let me start as usual with a summary on page three of the presentation. The usual three key messages that are quite consistent by the way over the last few quarters First of all, in the third quarter of this year, we've seen a continued volume growth across all geographies. I think this is particularly important also because the third quarter of last year was already a strong quarter as geographies were exiting COVID. Therefore, we had a tougher comparison in the quarter. In particular, we have seen a particularly strong summer in Italy, well supported by tourism. And we had a very material comeback of international tourists in the country. But also, we have seen a nice continued development in the Nordics and in the DAC region, for example, on basic consumption that has been growing year on year, double-digit. Last relevant comment, we continue to see a strong performance in SMEs where value of transactions have been growing at almost 30% in the first three quarters of this year. And this is actually faster than what was experienced on the larger merchants that nevertheless are also growing double digit. So first message, continued volume growth across all geographies despite tougher conflicts. Second key message, very solid positive financial performance in the third quarter and in the nine months. We've been growing revenues in the quarter by 7%, which means a 9% year-to-date. In particular, merchant services have been growing about 10%, 13% year-to-date, with EBITDA growing about 12% in the quarter with clear continued operating leverage effect and contribution from synergies, from cost synergies in particular. And this brings the EBITDA growth year-to-date at about 16%, with a four percentage point margin expansion in the year so far. Third, and last message, we continue to progress in the creation of the European Paytech Leader in bringing our company together. We present to you our strategy medium-long-term financial ambition at Capital Market Day at the end of September. And thanks for the many questions and comments and feedbacks that we have received since then in our conversations. The only update that is relevant from this point of view is that we simply continue to deliver the synergies, the in-year synergies according to our plan that is to deliver a bit more than 100 million euros cash synergies in the year And so far, we already have 68 million euros in the numbers to date already. On the back of this progress, we continue to confirm our ambition for 2022. That, again, as a reminder, is 7% to 9% revenue growth and EBITDA 13% to 16% growth. Now, let me move to, as usual, to volumes, page 4. As a reminder, these graphs and these numbers show volume dynamics compared to 2021. In attachment, you also find the same page that compares volumes to 2019 dynamics, and this is really, really important because it gives you a sense of the structural longer-term growth after COVID-19. recovery of the business, regardless of the year-on-year comparisons. As you see, in the third quarter of the year, we've observed a double-digit growth across all geographies. You look at Italy, 15%, 14%, 14%, with a strong contribution from the recovery of high-impact consumption in particular. In the Nordics, and on the right, you see the strong contribution and strong recovery in particular from foreign cards in the quarter. In the Nordics, nice 17, 20, 15% growth in the quarter, also supported by strong performance in the high-impact sectors. And in Germany, in Dakar more in general, but Germany is most of these volumes, if you adjust for the larger customers that we decided in the past to discontinue, as non-profitable growth has also been around 15%, 14%, 16%. Again, also here, net of the effect that I mentioned before with strong from high impact sectors. Last comment, we've also given you, as we always try to do, the latest data. This is actually the month of October. October is a bit of a lighter month compared to the previous ones. but it's also, in general, a month that has a lower weight in the full year. Clearly, how the year will land at the end of it, we really depend on November and December in particular that are normally very, very important months for the full year performance. If we move to the next page, as always, we try to give you A few highlights of our business progress, in particular, investment services and solutions. Let me go through the key points here, starting from SMEs that represent half or more than half of the revenues in this space. Volume in the nine months has been growing 29% compared to the previous year. Let me underline three important points here. continuous translates performance across all geographies. We simply highlight this time Switzerland and Poland as faster growing spaces in terms of commercial progress. Overall, in the last 12 months, we've been installing about 200,000 terminals across the various geographies with Italy continuing to provide a strong contribution to these. The second comment I would like to underline is the progress on the launch of the SoftBoss. As you know very well, this is de facto a software version of a terminal that is becoming an app in a smartphone or in a tablet. We believe this is an important evolution in our industry because it offers us many opportunities in terms of positioning and expansion of business opportunities across the various segments of the market, both in SME and in LACA. but also across the different verticals. We are in market and selling with already many active customers in Denmark, Greece and Hungary and will be soon launched in other geographies as well, including Italy and Germany next year. If I may here, I would underline our satisfaction for what we are doing in this space with larger merchants, You see it in the bottom part of the page where we're actually implementing very interesting use cases where, thanks to the soft post, we are providing other backup services. For example, we have been helping a Nordic customer that was under, unfortunately, a cyber attack that had nothing to do with us, but we've been able to bring them back into active sales mode thanks to a super-fast service roll out in a few hours of soft posts for their stores or for example, restaurant chains where we're implementing these to really expand the possibility to serve their customers better at the table and for home delivery. The third element I'd like to underline on SMEs is the continued progress in expanding our partnerships with software players and it is through our crossword geographies and verticals here we're simply underlining Some interesting progress in smart mobility and retail. As far as e-commerce is concerned, we have seen a growth of volumes that is about 16% year-to-date. We continue to progress in the Nordics with some acceleration also in Germany on our easy collecting PSP proposition. And second point, we are focusing more and more on the mid-market, which tends to be a very attractive, more local segment, faster-growing segment, where we're seeing very nice wins. Also, when competing with the specialized new paychecks across, for example, financial services, retail, on mobility. The third element I would like to underline on e-commerce is the continued progress in basically integrating into our PSP proposition, into our acceptance propositions, alternative payment methods, and by now pay later methods also from third parties, for example, Afterpay in Germany or Traslit across the Nordics. Last but not least, in LACA we have seen about a 70% growth year-to-date in terms of volumes. Instead of underlying the many new wins, and again here don't forget that we are focusing on more and more on the mid part of LACA, mid to low part of LACA that is again, we believe the most attractive, especially given our strategy and positioning. They've instead underlying the progress we're making on the proposition itself in terms of omni-channel and vertical capabilities, both in the Nordics and in Italy. And also here, the continuing entrenchment with enabling platforms and the partnership with enabling platforms across CRM, ERP, and property management software solutions where we integrate with these partners and we also go to market with these partners. I think here it's particularly notable the partnership that we have developed with GlobalBlue that is allowing, among others, us to integrate very, very easily across geographies, for example, with Oracle platforms. Let me now hand over... to Bernardo, and we'll come back with a Q&A later.

Thank you, Paolo. Good afternoon for me as well. I'm on slide 7, so starting with an overview of our group revenues and EBITDA, and so translating the operating performance we saw in terms of volumes in the geographies in which we operate during the course of the third quarter into how those translated into financial performance revenues and EBITDA. We've seen how in the quarter revenues grew just north of 7%, and if you look at the nine months, 8%. I would like to just focus also on the callout on this slide, which shows what our revenues would have grown if we grossed them up for scheme fees. We've started to show this metric also in the half-year results, given their relevance to top-line growth, and in particular, in this year in which the return of travel and interchange fees related to foreign cards is so significant. So the top line growth would actually have been an 11% growth in the quarter and 12% for the year to date. We then move on to EBITDA and thanks to the operating leverage we spoke of during our capital markets there you can see how the top line growth in terms of revenues translates into And year-to-date growth of EBITDA of 16.5%, just higher than the guidance for the year, and in the quarter, 12%. And this shows in the EBITDA margin accretion, which is around 200 basis points in the quarter from 52% to 54% of EBITDA margin. If we look at it on a year-to-date basis, it's even higher from 45% to 49%. Moving on to the divisional performance on slide number eight, we can see the same data represented for merchant solutions. We have revenue growth, which is just shy of being double-digit in the quarter, 9.6% for the group. And if we look at it on a gross level, excluding scheme fees, it's actually 15% growth. On a year-to-date basis, the reported revenues are 12.6% and gross of scheme fees, 18%. And this is driven... essentially by the strong growth in volumes we experienced during the quarter with a healthy return of tourism in those countries in which it's important for us to think of Italy and Greece a little less so in business travel, but in general the strong growth in quarterly volumes that we saw earlier. I'd also like to call out two other factors. You can see the positive contribution to our revenue growth in this division from the install base. We've added north of 200,000 POS terminals in the year to 30th of September, in the 12 months to 30th of September this year. And we also call out the positive performance of SME with a 29% volume growth we've seen here to date, which is very important given the relevance to our strategy of this segment, which we also discussed in late September. Slide number nine shows performance in issuing solutions. Even in this division, we have positive performance in the quarter, close to 6% growth. This is slightly higher than the average for the year, which is 5.2%. Here, I'd like to highlight how not only did we have solid volume growth, which is driving this top-line performance, but also the addition of close to 2 million international debit cards. In Italy now, not all of these are new international debit cards. Some of them are migrations within Axio of Italy. the older model of international debit to the newer Nexi international debit card, but this is all helpful in terms of fueling top-line growth. I would also like to highlight how we're making progress on our advanced digital issuing proposition, so selling CVM products outside of our original home country, Italy, into other clients and countries within the group. Moving on, on slide 10, we can focus on digital banking solutions. Similarly to the performance in the previous quarters, we have a roughly flat performance year on year. You know that this is mostly about comp. We lost certain activities relating to DBS due to banking consolidation in Italy, in particular a bank which was bought by a larger Italian bank and for that larger bank we didn't do part of the services. So it's really about comp. That said, performance roughly flat. In the Nordics we also had and we'll see it in a second, migration from the legacy BankID platform, which has also impacted project-related revenues in the quarter. Slide 11 gives you an overview of the geographic breakdown of our revenues and their growth. Before I start commenting the various geographies, I'll just remind you what Paolo mentioned earlier, which is essentially that in the third quarter this year, we have a much tougher comp compared to 2021 that we used to have in the first two quarters of the year due to the exit from COVID restrictions last year, which was phased in the first half of 2021. So a much tougher comp, and this is true throughout the geographies which we operate in. So all four of the geographic areas suffer from this tougher comp. Having said that, Italy has shown strong performance, close to double-digit top-line growth, 9.9%. This, I must say, to be fair, has benefited from... some third quarter, fourth quarter, I would say, migration of some benefits related in particular to scheme fees. So the way we calculate scheme fees is dependent on projections and volumes and things like that. They may well fall in one quarter or the other. This year they tend to have fallen a little earlier into the year, so in the third quarter, which has slightly improved the otherwise strong performance of Italy's geography. With regards to Nordics, we can see top-line growth for the year to date is in line with the mid-high single-digit top-line growth ambition we have for that sector. In the quarter, we suffer from a couple of phenomena, which are the platform migration I was mentioning earlier with regards to DBS and the Nordics, but also the phasing of some pricing actions we took on certain clients as normal course commercial activity with them. If we move on to DACH and Poland, here too we have a top line growth of 4%, slightly lower than what it was for the nine months here to date. Here I'd point to things we've also discussed in the past that have proved to be a drag to the top line, in particular in the third and fourth quarter this year, I would expect, which is the exit from certain businesses where we thought the risk return profile wasn't appropriate. We've discussed those in the past, but also and you know since our capital markets day that we have decided to exit the BNPL space as principal players in that sector, and that has also impacted the top line growth in that we're not fueling it ahead of a sale. If we look at Southeastern Europe, we also have an impact in the quarter coming from, let's say, the Russian-Ukrainian war and the fact that sanctions have led us to lose a client in one of the Southeastern European geographies. This is a few single-digit million euro loss plus project work there as well. We're talking very small absolute amounts. If we move on to slide 12, having spoken about revenues, we can now look at costs and I think we discussed the way our cost base will behave in light of the inflation we're all facing during our capital markets day. I think what you see on this slide is the translation into actual numbers of what we're expecting. a cost base which overall for the year is roughly flat, it's slightly up 1.3%, in the quarter 1.9%. If you gross up for scheme fees, similarly as we've done for revenues, we obviously have a much higher level of cost, similarly to a much higher level of revenue growth. But concentrating on the net costs excluding scheme fees, we can see that HR costs are growing by 0.2% and this is the effect of inflation in those countries in which we renegotiated HR costs offset by our ability both to extract further efficiencies and the synergies coming from the integrations. The same holds true for non-HR costs and here we benefit from longer term contracts with our suppliers that haven't priced in the effects of inflation in which we will be negotiating going forward as we had discussed the synergies and all of this helping to offset the natural trend to grow costs in light of the strong volume growth we've seen. So operating leverage fully confirmed in terms of our operating cost growth in the quarter, which has been minimal. On slide 13, I would just briefly comment on the fact that we're on track to deliver the full $105 million of cash synergies, which we expect to deliver for 2022. And of course, we're on track to deliver the full amount for 2025 and beyond of €365 million we discussed at the end of September. Finally, before handing the floor back to Paolo for concluding remarks and opening for Q&A, just a quick word on leverage, which is always something we are happy to discuss when we meet with the investor community. Our leverage is coming down. It's now 2.8 times EBITDA if you look at it on EBITDA inclusive of synergies. and 3.3 times if you exclude those. At the end of the quarter, and this happened around about the time of our Capital Markets Day, you know that we basically were able to source new funding to the tune of €900 million to use proactively, not only to pay for the various M&A deals that have been announced, but also to proactively invest manage ahead of time maturities coming due in 24, 25, and 26, with a benefit in terms both of the duration profile of the portfolio, but also managing the cost base, I think, very effectively. That said, Paolo, I'd hand the floor back to you for your concluding remarks. Thanks.

Thank you, Bernardo. If we can move to page 16, I will not go through it because you know it very well. We simply want to reiterate the fact that we confirm our ambition for 2022. Where we will land, it will depend on the performance that we see in particular in November and December, and that will be very much determined by the overall market conditions that we will operate in November and December. Never forget that we always said that the second half of the year would have been slower than the first half because of the physical comp due to basically the recovery dynamics out of COVID. So let's see where we land at the end of the year based on November and December in particular. So to conclude on the next page, again, three sample messages. We've seen continued growth in the third quarter, double digit across all geographies. despite summer last year was also a good summer. Solid financial performance that allows us to confirm our guidance for the year and continued progress on the combination of our company and the creation of European Paytech leader. Let me stop there and let me open to your questions.

Thank you. This is the course call conference operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touch-tone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and 2. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and 1 at this time. The first question is from Sebastian Stabovic with Capital Chevrolet. Please go ahead.

Hello, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. Have you seen any specific change in market dynamics due to the weakening macroeconomic environment? And specifically, since the end of the third quarter, could you please comment on the volume trends in October and until the middle of November? Any specific, I would say, direction? And the second one will be on Italy. We have seen the new government in Italy ambition to raise the cap on cash payment. Do you see any specific impact on your business going forward? And do you believe that the new government will be a little bit less committed to accelerate the shift from cash to digital payment from the previous one? Or you don't see any specific change in the strategy from government in Italy? Thank you.

Hi, Sebastian. Thank you for your questions. Let me try to take both of them. Listen, on October recent volume dynamics, the only comment we can make is basically the one that I made before commenting on page four. Now, clearly, if you compare October numbers with the previous month's They are a bit lighter. By the way, it depends a little bit by geography, by sector, and so on and so forth. They are still in very, very strong recovery from 2019. I think the environment is still a little bit unstable in the sense that across the month, We've seen lighter weeks, but also stronger weeks. I think, for example, the last week of October was actually a pretty strong one, pretty much in line with previous months. So I think the jury is out in terms of what will happen going forward and in particular towards the year end. I will not overemphasize October because it's always been a little bit of a strange month, a transition month now in between summer and then entering towards the end of year and the Christmas season. So I really believe it's early to have a more robust assessment or a reliable assessment of what is the evolution. Ourselves, we are taking a little bit of a more conservative stance for the last part of the year, but still in the solid growth territory. As far as talent government measures and so on and so forth, listen, I think that in general, I mean, as you can imagine, we cooperate, we have a very active dialogue with the governments of the countries where we operate, and we see a modernization of society, digitization in general, is an important priority for all of them. And this has been the case also for Italian governments, all of them. And I'm sure it's the same also with the new one that, by the way, is very, very recent. More specifically on that measure, that measure has absolutely no impact on us because that measure has to do with the cap of how much cash you can use for this single purchase that cap is currently 2 000 euros and that is going to be raised apparently to a higher level and it's still undefined but to be very very clear the percentage of business that we do above the 2 000 euros is absolutely marginal our average ticket is 60 to 70 euros to give you a sense and most of the growth of the market is actually coming from from smaller size payments becoming more frequent and across the population. So that's a real driver of growth for us. So absolutely no impact from that. And honestly, we believe that digitization, modernization of society will remain a priority for everybody. Thank you.

The next question is from James Goodman with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you for taking my questions. Just firstly, digging a little bit into the German performance, very strong in the quarter on Italy, but a little bit surprised to see 4% growth in Germany. I think you called out BNPL and also the client exits we've discussed before, but wondered if you could comment on where growth would be, maybe excluding that given the anticipated acceleration in growth in Germany. And then secondly, just on the outlook for 23, just wondered if anything has changed since the comments you made at the CMD that growth should be not less than 7%. We're a bit closer now. Anything that you can comment on in terms of additional visibility you think you might have given the backdrop in Italy? Thank you.

Hi, James. Listen, Germany, I mean, besides what Bernardo said, that in the quarter and I think in the second half of the year more broadly, we'll have some visible impact. Also, because now forget it, when you start looking at performance on a quarterly basis, numbers are actually small and therefore a few million euros here or there suddenly become big percentages. But besides the comments that Bernardo already made, the underlying business is actually growing pretty strongly. Let me give you Data points, for example, for SMEs, SMEs are growing in quarter, almost 20% in terms of revenues, and we see good traction also on the front book sales that I think in Germany are about 10% to 20% higher versus last year. So there is nothing specific on the German business. It remains a super high priority for us, and we have high expectations, and we'll invest to grow the business faster and faster. over time, and by the way, we also have a new focused leadership team there, so that we see no difference from the outlook that we've given you as far as Germany is concerned. As far as the outlook for next year, no, honestly, at this stage, there is nothing more we can say about that. You remember in our capital market day, We said that based on where we were in September, we were expecting a top-line growth of at least 7%. Again, that's not guidance. That's not a target. We will communicate that at the beginning of the new year once we will have the full year this year and a better outlook. At this stage, we have no reason why we should change that view. As we discussed at the Capital Market Day, that view was already taking into account a potentially slower latter part of this year and next year. Then obviously, if instead the situation becomes tougher, we may have to revisit it, but we remain great believers in general of the resilience of our business. It is always a reminder is strongly supported by the shift from cash to digital that we see continuing everywhere, rather than the shorter-term macro dynamics.

Yeah, very clear. Much appreciated.

The next question is from Mohamed Moawalla with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello, Bernardo. Two from me. categories.

Have you started to see... Sorry, we had an interruption in the connection. I don't know if it's on our side or on your side. You can just repeat it.

Yeah, sure. So I had two questions. First one, have you seen from some of your customers who are in more discretionary categories any sort of slowdown or impact? You talked about reinvestments in the second you seem to be running a little ahead of plan. Should we issue that the reinvestments will kind of perhaps reaccelerate in Q4? And how do you think of reinvestments in 2020 to your visibility on the top line? Thank you.

So thanks more for your questions.

In terms of slowdown, I think, Paolo, the overarching comment is, please remember, October is, in general, a lighter month in any given year compared to the previous nine months or so. certainly compared to the next two months in the quarter. So it's very hard to judge from October's performance what one is trying to do, i.e. glean information about the future. If I look at the quarter, the quarter had strong growth throughout the board. We highlighted it and it gives us comfort that notwithstanding the tough comp compared to 2021, the quarter was very strong in terms of volume growth and financial performance. In October, we have, and you see that in the numbers we published, a slight slowdown compared to last year, but this is, I would say, not unexpected. I would also say it's probably not as bad as one might have feared, but the key is we need to wait until the full year, so November numbers, and in particular the second half of November numbers with Black Friday, which is incredibly important, and of course the shopping season around Christmas. which is why we pointed to February for guidance for 2023. So I would say that, but then, you know, within the expense categories, if we look at the deeper, you know, in half-year numbers and full-year numbers we give you within discretionary spend, for instance, or other categories, restaurants, restaurants are still booming, right? Understanding whether that is, and booming, I mean, you know, 60% growth or thereabouts. Whereas that, if that is inflation, more people using cards rather than cash, etc., It's hard for us to tell, but we haven't seen in all categories the slowdown I was mentioning for October. October is just in general a lighter month. So let's wait and see for November and December, how they go, and February will give you an update with regards to 2023, where we start from the floor, which is a floor, Paolo said, of 7%, and we're in the midst of doing our budget, and that hasn't changed in terms of our ambitions, let's say. With regards to reinvestments, you're right. We said we are going to invest more in our business this year or reinvest part of the synergies even though cash and capital are fungible. So we were devoting more capital to certain growth areas and we are doing it probably more in the fourth quarter than the third quarter and probably more in the fourth quarter than the third quarter compared to our own plans. But that's still the idea and that is also true for next year and I think we spoke about that during the course of our capital markets day.

Thank you.

The next question is from Josh Levin with Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. With regards to the competitive landscape, I know people often ask you about Audien, but what about Stripe? To what extent do you see Stripe as an emerging competitor in your markets? And then the second question is about the nets integration. Can you just provide a bit more detail? How far along are you? What has been done in terms of the NETS integration and what remains to be done in terms of the integration? Thank you.

Sure. Hi, Josh. On the competitive environment, I think we debated quite a bit also the Capital Market Day. Specifically on Stripe, the reality is that Stripe, we see them, I would say, almost only in e-com enablers and marketplaces. We don't see them in some smaller merchants. We definitely don't see them, at least not for now, in physical. We don't see them, at least not for now, in omnichannel. And when they try to enter the space of the larger merchants, they really struggle to win with us. With others, honestly, I have no idea. But that's the way we see it. So they are pretty strong and successful with the Shopify's of this world, which, by the way, Shopify is the biggest channel into market. It's a strong partnership that comes from the past and continues to be. successful but for now this is the dynamic that we see so I would say really focused but not so far successful material outside of that space but obviously we watch them with a lot of attention because it really is a great company with a great player at least in that space as far as the next integration is progressing as we did explain at a capital market they were progressing exactly in line with our plan Both when it comes to operational organizational integration, we're moving to a one single organizational structure that goes beyond the old ones from January next year, which is exactly what we had planned to do. And we are progressing in the delivery of our synergies on a daily basis according to our plan, I think. You may remember that we also said that we were expecting to deliver in the long term materially higher cash synergies. I think it was about 100 million more cash synergies. And that's actually what we're working on. That's actually what we are delivering. So there is no particular new news on that front. Thank you.

The next question is from Justin Forsyth with Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thank you so much for letting me on. Just a couple of questions here. So first, I wanted to kind of touch a little bit more on the current macro environment and specifically the shift between spending buckets. It's been talked a little bit thus far. But, you know, related to inflation and cost of living, I think Nexia has previously spoken to a minimal impact to volumes given the shift between spending buckets. I just wanted to understand a little bit more of your exposure to utility payments. I saw it as a decent-sized exposure within the volume base in one of your presentations. Has that been a benefit thus far in Italy or elsewhere across the portfolio, and is there a yield differential there? Secondly, I wanted to talk a little bit about the ISV strategy. Specifically, you called out some key integrations during the CMD. one of them being Zucchetti, for instance, maybe just using that as an example, could you talk a little bit more about that integration? Is that within the accounts payable suite, for instance? And on top of that, does that imply that you're starting to gain traction within B2B payments and what your kind of go-forward strategy is and if you plan to tackle B2B payments more extensively going forward? Thank you.

Hi, Justin, and thanks for your questions. Listen, on macro, let me try to summarize what we see happening and so on and so forth. You're right. Inflation is eating different baskets in different ways. Clearly, that is eating the energy basket more than others. Take into consideration the fact that this is actually good news and bad news. The the debt basket for us is pretty small. The impact on us is pretty small also because the customers normally use to pay their bills other payment methods. So that's, if you like, the basket dynamic that we observe. The general point that we tend to make when we talk about this is that historically, throughout the macro crisis, we have seen actually consumer spending being quite resilient. I'm not saying not impacted, I'm saying quite resilient. So I think we are looking forward to understanding how these potential crises may evolve from this standpoint with a differential impact of inflation depending on the sector. And going back, I think, to what Moe I was asking before, if you look at it by sector-by-sector basis, clearly the one we've seen in October, the fastest, if you like, signal of fragility has been clearly the discretionary goods starting from closing. That's the usual category that is affected by this type of dynamics, but with others being very strong or continuing to be very strong at the same time. On the ISV strategy, I think here we are probably just combining in your question three different things that are all quite important to us. The first one is the most strategic for us, which is partnering with software vendors, their distribution channels, both in integrating our proposition and distributing our products and services together and that's the direction where most of the deals that we are doing is going including the Zucchetti one the second thing is that with some of them and Zucchetti again is one of them we actually develop a broader portfolio of initiatives in terms of partnership offering them some of these people for example are becoming electronic money institutions and payment institution we offer them all the capabilities are necessary for them to do it in a simple and an agile way so it's additional business for us is a great support for them or for example we also work with some of them on the card side on the issuing side offering them our off-the-shelf products And this is true for Zucchetti, but also for a few other of these relationships, especially when you have on the other side of the table strong big companies. Zucchetti is a big, strong company in the Italian market in terms of offering point-of-sale software and more broadly services. And then there is a third component of that, which, by the way, also is valid for Zucchetti. So you are perfectly right in combining the three of them. which is our focus on business-to-business transactions. It is a focus that we've always had and we continue to have, even if now it remains a smaller part of our business. It's an area where, for example, in the third business unit, we have a lot of activities also leveraging our open banking capabilities and clearing capabilities, corporate payment capabilities, the relationship with public administration and so on and so forth. So it continues to be an important area, although this one is a bit more Italy-focused. So that's the way I would summarize it.

Got it. Just a quick follow-up, if I might, on that. On the issuing side, are you issuing virtual cards, or is that like expense management type cards? Really interesting use case there, and appreciate it. I'll drop off now. Thanks, Paolo.

the we actually do both um and here we we should again uh uh uh consider the fact that where we are real issuer or co-issuer is in fact italy for now we will uh uh we are having conversation to export this also in other places but for today is mainly Italy and when we look at business customers we offer both so we go to corporate more in general from SMEs to large ones and offer them cards for their employees with different type of billing and solutions with all the management on the back of it which is obviously very important for them but also we offer virtual cards that are at the end of the day working capital management products and services for for them. Got it. Thanks so much.

The next question is from Annes Leitner with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you for letting me on. I have mostly, the most questions were answered, but can you maybe talk, give an update around the M&A strategy and also about the pending asset for sale rate pay and also if there are any merchant books still left in Italy to grab.

Sorry, hi, Anis. I didn't get the first one. M&A in and out. M&A in general. But listen, let me give you a broader answer and then I'll leave the floor to Bernardo on asset for sale. In general, you know that we never comment on individual situations and this, but... We remain really focused on what we discussed at the Capital Market Day. So our focus is in merchant services to begin with, and we are looking at opportunities basically in three spaces, consolidating our presence in the markets where we are present through more merchant books. So if I can also address your third point, Yes, in Italy, we always consider the opportunities if that's consistent with the strategy of our partner banks, and we try to focus on the more material ones to make sure that we remain focused on the bigger opportunities. Second, we said that we would consider expanding very selectively in other European geographies in case there were attractive opportunities and value-creative opportunities in in terms of merchant books, and third, now potentially strengthening our portfolio of capabilities in the e-commerce and software space. And these are the three areas where we continue to be active. As I said before, in a very, very focused way, we've given up many theoretical opportunities or many conversations where we've been engaged simply because we're not big enough to bother, we're not creating enough value for our customers. On assets for sale, Bernard, if you want to give a...

So the ones we bucketed and held for sale, EID in Denmark and rate pay, we are in the process of basically disposing of these assets. I think it's early days. We're not in a particular hurry to do so. Obviously, the sooner the better, but we're not forced sellers. These are assets which are not. that big compared to the rest of the group, so it's not something which makes a material difference to our P&L, especially if you look further down the P&L. I think we're further down the process in terms of EAD in Denmark, and with regard to rate pay, it's probably an easier asset because it exists as a company, it has a track record, stock track record, audited financials and the likes, but it's probably not the best time to be marketing a consumer finance business, so we will take our time on that one to find the best possible solution. Having said that, we have had a number of inquiries coming in after the announcement and showing interest and curiosity for this kind of asset. things are progressing as per plan a little faster on EID and a little slower on rate pay. But I think these are two very good assets that we are capable of extracting maximum value from.

Thanks for that. Just maybe circling back to Paolo's comment around M&A, maybe just looking now into 2023 and in the recent devaluation of the sector, do you see then that you will continue in that cadence or are there Now, more assets available for sale or less, so how should we think about 2023 and the whole tailwind from M&A?

Listen, I can only reiterate what we said in the past. We don't have a specific cadence in mind or not. We're also very happy to stay put and not do M&A in case there are no attractive opportunities that generate real value for our For our shareholders, I think we will continue to operate along the lines of, on the one side, strengthening our portfolio in the three spaces that I mentioned, again, only if clearly strategic and very active. And on the other side, we'll continue to simplify our portfolio with a clear priority on the two initiatives that we mentioned. And then the timing will be based on when the opportunities arise.

Great, thank you.

The next question is from Sandeep Deshpande with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for letting me on. My question is about the Nordics. When we look at the growth in the Nordics, the overall growth in the Nordics was also quite slow in the quarter. When we look at the comp in the previous year, Nordics didn't have the kind of high comp that Dark had. So what is exactly happening in the Nordics? Why is the growth where it is? Like you had those one-offs in the Dark region, were there any one-offs in the Nordics which caused the growth to be where it is? And in terms of the Nordics, is there something in the future which is going to cause the growth to accelerate from here?

Hi, Sandip. So, listen, I think Bernardo already mentioned it. In the Nordics, in the quarter, we have a couple of specific phenomena that are connected to the business, the DBS business that, by the way, is for sale and is still including these numbers because we wanted to remain consistent in the year with the guidance. So, that's one. And the second one, there are certain... price changes that are coming from the past that are impacting this quarter in a more specific way. But again, just to give you a little bit of a sense of it, if you look at merchant services revenues, they're actually growing double digits. So we don't see at this stage any specific Nordic issue. Actually, performance is very strong in merchant services. On the other two divisions, it's affected by what Bernardo has mentioned, and therefore we're not changing our view going forward because These two dynamics that are a little bit of a drag in the quarter specifically will fade away going forward.

I'm not sure whether this question was asked, but one quickly on inflation. Can you remove the inflationary impact on your merchant services growth or that is not possible to do?

Sorry, I didn't understand. Can you remove? No, we can't. I mean, it's impossible. Ah, no, no, no. You mean separating the numbers. No, no, it's impossible. I think, I'm not sure I would do it because it really becomes very complicated, but it's also technically impossible.

Okay. Thank you.

The next question is from Alistair Nolan with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Great. Thank you very much. I think quite a few of my questions have been answered. Maybe one area would be around pricing, particularly in merchant services. Just keen to hear if you have seen any different sort of behavior from merchants, any different trends when it comes to pricing. Is there any increased pressure given the macro? Just any updates that would be helpful. Thank you.

Hi, Alistair. Not really. I mean, not connected to the macro dynamics. So on the one side, I think everybody is looking for savings. But on the other side, everybody is also recognizing that delivering products and services has a higher cost due to inflation. So that's a little bit the balancing. To be honest with you, so far, we've not seen any material change in what is happening out there. And this is, I would say, true across the various geographies.

Perfect. Thank you.

The next question is from Alexandre Four with Exxon BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon. Thanks for letting me on. I have just one question on macro again, but not on merchant services this time, rather kind of impact on card and digital payments wondering if you've seen any lengthening in the decision making process of your customers perhaps we've seen that elsewhere in sort of financial software and somewhat relating to that if you could comment on the state of your pipeline and whether you're seeing any large deals coming up one of your big competitor sounded quite excited with demand from banks when it comes to payment processing. Thank you very much.

Hi, Alexandra. I guess on the digital payments, you had in mind the banks when you were talking about customers, not the end customers, right?

Right, right.

I think in general you have a point there in the sense that clearly in general the banks and larger merchants are over the last few months have become a bit slower on specific projects, and this has a little bit of an impact on project work-related revenues because they're actually a little bit into a wait-and-see mode themselves. Again, the overall impact on our revenues is fairly marginal because we are a recurring revenue business rather than a project work business, but answering to your specific question, There is a little bit of that. And listen, I think on a large deals, I'm not sure what you're in mind in general, but the same also applies, even if there is not really a rule. I mean, we're working on very complex deals where the customer is just progressing as fast as possible. And this is true for banks and corporates. So I would say on average, there is a little bit of a slowdown. but there are individual very large cases where instead they're pressing ahead as fast as they can. So there is not, I would say, a rule.

Understood. This is helpful. Thank you.

The next question is from Aditya Budavarapu with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just one from my side. Can you talk about the market share trends in different markets, so Italy, Nordic, stack? Particularly in Italy, I guess you're seeing one of your major competitors buying some assets there. So anything you're seeing on different markets?

Let me just reiterate again what I think we tried to say at the Capital Market Day. I think there is a general trend that is also a little bit consistent with our own strategy, which is clearly winning market share, which is in the markets where we are challengers, places like Germany, Switzerland, Poland and others. and we see it happening and clearly more defend our position on the value of the market and actually try to increase the portfolio of products and services we sell to customers in markets where instead we are leaders and this is a little bit what we see happenings. But there is no particular new dynamic in the current environment. This is, I would say, true. throughout the last period, and we see it continuing, and it's actually our own plan. When we gave you our own perspective on outlook for the coming years, mid-long term, we were having a busy mind. Grow market share, where we are challengers, defend, even sometimes accepting a little bit of erosion of market share, where instead we are strong, strong leaders.

Thank you. Just maybe one quick follow-up. In Germany specifically, I mean, it looks like volumes are still below the pre-COVID levels, below 2019 levels, especially, I guess, on the high-impact side. So, I mean, how are you looking at that market sort of recovering into 4Q in the next year?

Listen, Dean, the volumes are unfortunately not a good indicator of our performance, but more in general, our strategy for Germany. If you look at, I mean, if you just take it, you have it in attachment, but actually if you look at the volumes net of what we've given up recently, as large customers because they were unprofitable, actually volumes are growing compared to last year, double digit in Germany. But nevertheless, and also versus pre-COVID, they're growing in August 13%, 11% in September, 8% in October. But again, I will not really take that as the right KPI because, as I said, we've given up large relationships that maybe have been taken by others and probably they like them, where we felt that the overall profitability, including cost of risk, for that customer, for that relationship, was not attractive for us. Again, let me just reiterate what I said before when it comes to revenues, that for us is the real measure here, profitable revenues, obviously. If you take that angle, SMEs are growing almost in the quarter. I'm saying 20% in the quarter and large merchants, where instead you have this volume effect, revenues are actually growing more than 20%. So that's really what is important to us.

Understood, and I guess should the impact of some of these discontinued clients wash out next year then? That's mostly something for this year.

In terms of revenue impact, and here I'm talking about large retailers or service companies, airline companies, and so on and so forth. In terms of the volume impact, that should unwind going forward. I think we are still finishing a little bit of, I mean, we are still exiting some customers and sometimes it takes time, even if we'd like to accelerate, because again, it's our objective to change position there. So probably we'll see it unwinding next year, but again, as far as revenues, in terms of LACA and SMEs, there is no real unwinding that should be seen in the future because the impact on revenues is a bit marginal.

Thank you.

The next question is from Simonetta Chiriotti with Mediobanca. Please go ahead.

Hi, good afternoon. A quick question on NETVET. If you give us a comment on the trends underlying the slide growth that we see with respect to June. Thank you.

Hi, Simonetta. Thanks. So slide, I'm just looking for the slide. Slide 14, you see

net debt dynamics between June and September where we have a slight increase approximately 75 million euros in terms of gross debt and a similar amount I'd say in terms of net debt. This is simply payment of interest, coupons and the likes during the quarter. Other expenses that Nets and Axie as a holding company had in terms of if you look at the cash balances and so on and so forth. So nothing nothing significant in the quarter.

There are no more questions registered at this time.

Thank you for participating and thank you for your questions. Again, as always, very happy to comment further and have further conversations in the coming weeks. Otherwise, we see each other with end-year results in early next year. Again, thank you for attending and have a good afternoon. Bye-bye.