5/2/2024

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Worldline Q1 2024 revenue conference call. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Gilles Grappinet, Worldline Group CEO. Please go ahead.

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

Thank you, Operator. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. Let me start with today's agenda and what we will cover in this presentation. After my introduction on the key highlights of this first quarter 2024, I will come back specifically on the evolution of Worldline Governance that the Group announced a few weeks ago. I will then give you an update on our business and commercial dynamics throughout the quarter. 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 that we will handle as well with Marc-Henri Deporte, our group deputy CEO. Let's have a look now at the three main highlights of Q1 2024. First highlight, as planned, we delivered the first quarter fully in line with our full year 24 outlook, with a Q1 organic growth at group level of 2.5%. Gregory will give you the details later, but this performance was mostly driven by merchant services, posting an organic growth close to 4%, in line with its anticipated full year trajectory, and benefiting from several commercial successes all along the quarter. This was achieved while absorbing the impact of our merchant termination process, Excluding this effect, the underlying growth of merchant services came at 6.5%, despite the macro and consumption momentum which stayed soft during Q1, as anticipated. Financial services and MTS are delivering in Q1 as per their anticipated 24 trajectory too. Second highlight. In the meantime, we are in execution mode to deliver all the immediate priority actions announced end of 2023. Regarding the merchant portfolio termination process, it is now fully behind us, with all merchants concerned having been notified. Thus, our €130 million revenue impact announced is clearly reconfirmed as a maximum. Regarding Power24, its implementation is in full road-out mode in all targeted countries, and I confirm our objective to deliver 200 million euros run rate cash cost savings minimum in 2025. Third, we have finalized the creation of our strategic joint venture with the Credit Agricole Group in France, which will offer soon the best of our two groups to merchants and retailers operating in France. We have received all the necessary approval. The management team is now in place, and the brand has been launched under the name of C.A.W.L. Now we are in the process to obtain the payment institution license from the French regulator, and this process is also fully on track, and we confirm the objective to have the joint venture fully live early 2025, starting to generate revenue for our group. Finally, Worldline has also announced, as planned, a renewed board of directors to be approved at Worldline Next AGM in June 2020. In line with the group commitment, the board composition would be reduced from 15 to 12 board members plus two employee directors, with a new chairman and three new directors entering. As announced, Mr. Wilfried Verstraete has recently been co-opted as a director and the Board intends to appoint him as a chairman following the General Meeting to be held on June 13, 2024, at which it will be proposed to ratify his appointment. Mr. Georges Poget will remain interim chairman until Mr. Wilfried Verstratte is elected chairman in order to facilitate a smooth transition. He will then resign from the Board of Directors. In addition, three new directors are expected to join the Board as of the upcoming AGM. Two independent directors, Ms. Agnes Park and Ms. Sylvia Steinman, with strong international executive background, including, respectively, in human resources, IT, transformation, and finance. One non-independent director, Mr. Olivier Gavalda, deputy CEO of Credit Agricole, with extensive financial and banking expertise. As part of the proposed changes, three current board members, Ms. Agnès Odier, Mr. Laurence von Hasburg-Lantringen, and Ms. Danielle Lagarde, have decided not to renew their mandate. And two other board members, Ms. Caroline Parot and Mr. Gilles Ardetti, will resign from their current mandate. This recomposed board will offer a balanced representation of skills and expertise and the diversity of its members adapted to the next strategic development phase of World War. Coming now to the Q1 business and commercial dynamics, I will start as usual with our commercial acquiring MSV development. In Q1 2024, Warline acquiring MSV is up 4%, reaching €110 billion. This development is in line with the trend shown last February, reflecting the current unchanged soft macro context in Europe. MSV was up plus 3% in store and plus 10% in online. Looking at the beginning of the second quarter, the trend observed in Q1 continues, with an MSV in the same range of growth as you can see. In this environment, while line commercial activity remains dynamic, as shown in the next slide. Starting with merchant services and first with small and medium businesses go to market, This entity has performed well this quarter in numerous countries, in particular Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. I would like to focus on Italy, where we have made a significant development through the new organic win during Q1 24 of an important strategic partnership with Casa Centrale Banca. We are particularly pleased and honored to have been selected by a major group like CCB through a competitive standard. It will be a very meaningful step forward for consolidating the world-wide presence in the Italian market and accelerating our commercial momentum in the country. This is also a recognition of our distinctive ability to perform in Italy with competitive and cutting-edge offerings, but as importantly, with a proven and successful business support and assistance model for our local partnering banks. The partnership with CCB involves a full end-to-end offering for international card networks to circa 60,000 net new merchants, generating incremental transacted volumes of circa 6 billion euros. From 2025, it will allow us to strongly increase our Italian footprint, growing our regional MSV by circa 20%, and our number of merchant locations in the country by close to 40%. These deals add to the numerous existing distribution partnerships already built in Italy since 2021 with major local financial institutions, including BNP Paribas Group, Banco Dezio, and Banca del Fucino. Now turning to our enterprise go-to-market. During the quarter, we have secured several wins and signed a number of partnerships relying on our product differentiation and dedicated vertical offerings. Starting first with the enrichment of our online geographical value proposition. We have signed a partnership with the FinTech Lidio in Turkey. It has been approved by Turkey Central Bank, making us the first online payment service authorized by TCB for international payments. The joint Wall-Line and Lidio solution streamlines the process of accepting Turkish payments optimizing time, cost, and payment performance of up to plus 25% in approval rate increase compared to a customer previous connection, while ensuring full compliance with the local Turkish regulations. This solution includes the acceptance of the domestic Troika for international businesses, which represents a breakthrough entry for global e-com players willing to expand their activities in this $72 billion market. On the verticalization and ISV-related distribution front, we have developed our ISV channel partnering with Tabesto, a major actor in order-taking and payment solutions within the restaurant industry. Together, we will deliver a unique customer experience planned for 36 countries. We will jointly launch the first all-in-one Fox ordering and payment Kiosk system using one of our key products, SoftPos Worldline Tap-on Mobile technology. During the quarter, we also signed in MS a number of other important names, as you can see on the slide, and we continued to extend the use of our solutions to existing customers to offer new products. Two points that I would like to highlight here. The dedicated solution for EV charging players continues to have a strong traction with the signing of names such as Electra, Rode, or ChemPower. allowing us to capture this fast-growing market thanks to our dedicated vertical solution and specific features. And we've extended our 16-year partnership with ASDA, the UK's third-largest supermarket group, to deliver now a full omni-channel payment solution combining POS, acquiring services, and smart transaction routing through the wall-line payment orchestration engine to enhance the customer experience and operational efficiency for approximately 800,000 weekly deliveries. To conclude on this part, and as said during our full year publication, Worldline Merchant Services is currently developing successfully its strong growth engines with regular opening of new geographic corridors for Global Ecom as illustrated today with Turkey, growing its ISV partnership distribution as seen with Tabesto, or reinforcing its vertical value proposition, as, for example, with the EV charging winds. In combination with our strong and growing distribution network, this product-centric strategy is a core pillar of our next development phase and will be much more detailed during our next capital market day. Regarding our two other business units, Q1 was dynamic in terms of commercial development led by Worldline core products NOA. Starting with FS and talking indeed about next-gen core product and value proposition, I would like to highlight the successful go-live of our new target card issuing platform on the German market. We have indeed successfully completed the migration of Consorzbank Visa Card portfolio from the existing mainframe solution to our cutting-edge, customer-centric new issuing processing solution. This is the first successful migration of a scale portfolio toward our new product generation on the German market. following its already successful rollout in the Belgian market. This new card issuing product will bring numerous new features and added value services, like, for example, instant card issuing. It also provides, for example, to Consorzbank here, access to a pan-European economies of scale, and ensure compliance with future market requirements and regulations. In parallel, we've extended several contracts on the issuing side, with so in Asia-Pacific, or BKM in Italy. Regarding METS, our dedicated product for the eHealth vertical has been key in the partnership signed with SecuNet. This product offers a simplified, secure, and digitized access to digital medicine and health services for doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and all health professionals in Germany, leveraging our secured pneumatic infrastructure gateway. We have a proven track record in this field with more than 350,000 acceptance points already managed. We have as well deployed our payment orchestration and messaging offering, with the signing of a contract with a major nationwide rail operator, while leveraging our offering for fleet management with a large integrated energy company. Let me now hand over to Gregory to walk you through our GTI Q1 revenue platform.

speaker
Grégory
Group CFO, Worldline

Thank you, Gilles, and good morning, everyone. Let me start with an overview of Q1 revenue performance. First quarter revenues came in at 1.1 billion euros, representing organic growth of 2.5%, in line with the expected four-year phasing. Restated from merchant terminations, Group Q1 growth stood at 4.4%. GBL by GBL, Q1 performance is as follows. MS is up 3.9%. or 2.9% on a net-net revenue basis, i.e. excluding scheme fees and partners' fees. And excluding merchant terminations, underlying growth is at 6.5%, thanks to strong commercial dynamics and good traction on select verticals. Financial services was down 1.4%, impacted by lower volumes in account payment division, despite a good dynamic in card processing. Finally, METS revenue was up 0.7%, in line with expectations. On a net revenue basis, group growth stood at 1.7% organically. Let me now zoom in on performance by business line. Looking at MS in more detail, revenues reached 787 million euros, up 3.9%. In commercial acquiring, Underlying growth improved versus Q4, driven by strong commercial momentum in Italy, as explained by Gilles earlier, as well as good winds in Switzerland, one of our core markets. Payment acceptance posted healthy growth, led by increased online travel and gaming volumes, which benefited from the ramp-up of contracts like Turkish Airlines, that signed last year, and of an increase in the share of wallet with Vizit. and digital services, performance was solid in key countries like Germany and Turkey. Looking forward, MS growth profile should continue to improve with a progressive growth reacceleration in H2. Turning to FS revenues, they reached 225 million euros in Q1. FS saw increased trends on the card processing front in Belgium and in the Netherlands, more than offset by lower volumes in account payments, while digital banking was stable. Looking forward, after a stabilization in H1, FH would slow down in the second half with lower volumes on existing contracts and some re-insourcing, only partially offset by improving commercial dynamics. Moving on to METS, revenues stood at 85 million euros with good underlying growth in our trusted and transport and mobility services, both benefiting from new projects and increased ticketing volumes. This was slightly offset by some project delays in France. Looking forward, METS is expected to improve through 2024 in terms of growth. Overall, group growth in the first quarter came in line with expectations, with good momentum in MS, And just as a reminder, in terms of phasing, we assume softer growth in H124, mainly due to merchant terminations, in an overall unchanged macro environment. Now let me hand over to Gilles to conclude.

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

Many thanks, Grégory. And to conclude indeed this presentation, let me reemphasize that we are actively executing the necessary transformation actions to strengthen our business and financial performance. with a very heavy focus this year on execution, notably on the following drivers. Number one, Power24. It is in full execution mode, with the transformation process launched in all target countries. It will deeply adapt our operating model, but more importantly, will structurally improve our operating leverage for the medium term. Number two, clearly our efforts and priorities are on improving our free cash flow generation, supported notably by a fast plan reduction of integration cost that is moving as per plan. We have also deeply adapted our incentive schemes to reflect this priority. Number three, regarding our credit agriculture joint venture, we could successfully meet two major milestones with antitrust approval and closing of the transaction, allowing the new management team and the two parents to actively prepare to go live early 2025. And in parallel, of course, we maintain our strong investment roadmap on the product and innovative offering of Warline to pave the way for future growth acceleration. Moving forward, I confirm that we will hold the Capital Market Day in the second half of 2024, where we will do a deep update on the Warline's future trajectory, product offerings, and competitive differentiators. To close this presentation, we confirm our full Year 24 guidance as follows. We expect to deliver in 2024 top line organic growth of at least 3%. On the adjusted BDL level, we expect to achieve at least 1.17 billion euros. Finally, we expect free cash flow of at least 230 million euros. Thank you very much for your attention. And I am now ready with the team, Marc-Henri and Gregory, to take your questions.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. To ask a question, please press star, one, one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To answer your question, please press star, one, and one again. We will now take the first question. Coming from the line of Frederic Boulan from Bank of America, please go ahead.

speaker
Frédéric Boulan
Analyst, Bank of America

Hey, good morning. If I can ask, Two questions on market dynamics. So you showed MSV remaining pretty soft at 4%. If you can break down a bit what you're seeing in terms of different components of that, so between consumer spending, move to cash, less payments, and market share dynamics. If we can share any detail on how that chart and trend would have looked like excluding merchant terminations. And when we look at this underlying growth of 6%, second question is, to a degree, is this impacted by pricing? So last year, I think you had this repricing program ongoing. What's the status here? And more broadly, can you comment on the level of competition and competitive dynamics you're seeing in your key markets, in particular Germany?

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

Yeah, sure. Hello, Fred. Good morning. Thank you for the question. Maybe I will start, Marc-Henri, and complete on the MSV front. I think fundamentally what is still driving MSV dynamic for what we see is still primarily consumption trends in Europe, I would say. We have not noticed particular changes in the, I would say, cashless momentum, which I think is still on its healthy, solid medium-term development. There are still a meaningful number of cash-based transactions in certain countries in Europe, as you know. I think the main driver stays. a soft consumption dynamic here globally across key countries, even if there are some better volumes that we could see in countries that were more affected probably somewhere in the second half of last year. We mentioned that we see indeed a bit better underlying dynamics in the German market.

speaker
Marc-Henri Deporte
Deputy CEO, Worldline

Just a couple of additional elements. The impact of merchant termination is pretty small on this MSV development, as we are not representing a significant share of this MSV and we are below the 1% level. So indeed, as Gilles said, it's primarily a consumer spending dynamic. that is impacting us as we see, and we will see how things evolve throughout the year, the MSV development. Regarding your question on the pricing, what we see is we have regular repricing for part of our portfolio, mainly the SMB portfolio. Overall, it allows us to have tech rates evolving slightly positively, so it is indeed supportive of the underlying growth and also a good sign that in terms of competitive positioning, our mix of business is not subject to significant price pressure. So it impacts slightly our growth performance, but it's not the main driver. So just to make a long story short, main driver is more connected to underlying volume developments, developments of number of merchants, development of our product activities.

speaker
Frédéric Boulan
Analyst, Bank of America

Thank you. And if I may follow up on the free cash flow and EBITDA. So I know it's not an EBITDA quarter, but you mentioned the restructuring plan is going ahead. Can you maybe share some commentary around phasing of EBITDA and free cash flow this year between H1 and H2, and also if you can confirm some of the free cash flow dynamics that you had discussed for 2025 in terms of restructuring costs and border free cash flow dynamics.

speaker
Grégory
Group CFO, Worldline

So first of all, we are completely on target with regards to the free cash flow profile. As we mentioned before, and you know our general trajectory, H2 should be much stronger in terms of ABDA and free cash flow phasing. And we are completely in line as well with our overall trajectory in terms of improving free cash flow conversion in 25 onwards. So completely in line at this stage with, as we said, the bulk of our The Power24 costs to be incurred this year, in particular in H2, once the social processes will be done with regards to Power24.

speaker
Frédéric Boulan
Analyst, Bank of America

Thank you, Erika.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now take the next question. Coming from the line of Mohamed Mouawalla from Goldman Sachs, please go ahead.

speaker
Mohamed Mouawalla
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Thank you. Morning, Gilles, Marc-Henri, and Gregory. Two from me. First, I just wanted to sort of clarify on the impact of the kind of high-risk contracts. That was probably a little less than what we were expecting in the quarter. Did I hear you correctly to say that it's kind of largely done and we should think of the impact in the second quarter and the rest of the year to be even less than what we saw in sort of Q1? And then just related to that, so how should we think of that underlying, I think you called out 6.5%, merchant services growth? Does that accelerate further in the second half, or is that still kind of the run rate you expect to sort of hit? And then just coming on your comments on financial services, I sort of sense a slightly more cautionary tone on the second half when you said that the growth would slow. Given the easy comps, are you thinking more flat growth in financial services in the second half, or does that still kind of potentially decline? Thank you.

speaker
Grégory
Group CFO, Worldline

Thank you, Mo. So in terms of the high-risk contracts, what we said is that it's been completed as of the end of Q1, and we confirmed that the $130 million that we announced in the past results report is indeed a maximum. So that's the first part. Going forward, it means that we will be having a tougher comp in Q2, where those contracts were still ongoing in 2023, while the comparable will improve in H2, hence the acceleration we have mentioned in a macroeconomic environment that is unchanged. And with regards to the overall underlying growth in MS, I will let Marc-Henri comment.

speaker
Marc-Henri Deporte
Deputy CEO, Worldline

On the underlying growth, we see that we are going to accelerate progressively throughout the year, so we have more of this momentum in H2. Maybe just to complete one thing on what Gregory just said, You may remember that we stopped the portfolio of merchants. Already some terminations occurred in the middle of last year and the base effect, and a part of it has been more progressive. And in fact, as Gregory explained, with all termination letters sent by the end of this quarter. So most of the impact now behind us in terms of end of the revenues and a bit of the phasing in front. So HMS overall momentum accelerating in H2.

speaker
Grégory
Group CFO, Worldline

And finally on your FS question, we are indeed looking at a stable H1 and an H2 slowdown on the back of a lower volumes this is all factored into our full year 24 guidance and what we see is a growth coming back during 2025 with major opportunities coming with the within the banking sector whether it be a mandatory instant payment implementation by your end next year or epi launch in participating countries as well as the digital euro where we are well positioned correct

speaker
Mohamed Mouawalla
Analyst, Goldman Sachs

Thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Alexandre Faure from BNP Paribas Exxon. Please go ahead.

speaker
Alexandre Faure
Analyst, BNP Paribas Exane

Good morning. Thank you very much for leading me on. Three questions, if I may, and maybe I missed a few things earlier. So going back to the previous question in terms of the underlying growth in MS over the course of the year, sort of stripping out the new risk management framework, I think you called out 6.5% in Q1. Just wondering if there was a lead day impact in that number and how we should think of an acceleration there and sort of adjusting for a termination of merchants that you discussed earlier. My second point was maybe if you could help us understand this extension with ASDA, for instance, in the UK and who you were competing with, how the new relationship compares to what you were doing before with ASDA would be interesting. And lastly, going back on one other commentary earlier in payment acceptance, you called out Turkish Airlines renting nicely. And I think you also mentioned a few wallet share gains. I was wondering if you could elaborate there where you saw commercial success and whether there were also any new logos outside of Turkish Airlines in payment acceptance. Thanks very much.

speaker
Grégory
Group CFO, Worldline

So I'll take the first one on the underlying MS growth. We indeed see 6.5% in Q1 in underlying. This is that we see a limited impact of a leap day. Going forward, what we are anticipating is that this underlying growth should be sustained, and therefore, in terms of reported growth, we'd have an acceleration given the comp that is that is becoming gradually more favorable with the risk policy implementation having started in Q2 last year.

speaker
Marc-Henri Deporte
Deputy CEO, Worldline

Regarding the wins, so as there is an existing relationship, it's not a new contract, that's true, but it's regularly expanding, including the dimension of acquiring, which is in the UK market, a very important element for us. You may remember we were granted a license, which was also a good sign of the relationship with the regulators. So from that point of view, it's an extension and an increase of the relationship with ASDA. In terms of wins overall, you were asking about the competition. On the UK market, we see the usual players. We see also some newcomers and some more aggressive fintechs. I'm not going to give the name of my competitors, but they are in this competitive environment. And on this very big retail, we remain a leading competitive edge thanks to the combination of the scale of our acquiring platform on one hand and the scale of our acceptance solution on the other. That's making a good difference.

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

And if you allow me, just Marc-Henri, to step in before you take the question on the acceptance development of Alexandre. I think ASDA is a very good example of a successful product development strategy within an existing account. I mean, because here, of course, we sell also new products coming from the development of the range of products in the MS portfolio. We mentioned in the press release the payment orchestration engine that is supporting delivery for retailers. And, of course, we're the game. is to be standing along with a given merchant and to try to equip them where themselves they develop their own products, their own innovations, their digital transformation, which is clearly the case of a very leading brand like Asda in the UK, to stay at the forefront of the race of innovation and customer experience.

speaker
Marc-Henri Deporte
Deputy CEO, Worldline

Coming back to the winds, the current development in terms of order entry, of pipe, of number of merchants is perfectly in line with expectations. So we have a number of good elements. We mentioned a few of the EV charging ones, which are always a combination of acceptance and acquiring features. Sometimes it's primarily focused on acceptance, so if your point is an acceptance, but we always try to add the acquiring layer in the line of developing the overall portfolio, like Jean explained. We had wins also in the travel sector, and we see some important customers, not only airlines, but also travel agencies. So these names, when we don't mention them, it's because the agreement about communication is not finalized. It's customer policy, so we have to stick to these rules. But overall, good developments in this acceptance landscape. both in online world and when it has a dimension of physical acceptance and physical platforms. So what overall our product stack is showing very good momentum and health.

speaker
Alexandre Faure
Analyst, BNP Paribas Exane

Very clear, thank you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now take the next question. from the line of George Levin from Autonomous Research. Please go ahead.

speaker
George Levin
Analyst, Autonomous Research

Good morning. I have two questions. First, what should we think is a normalized growth rate for merchant services, and how do you reach that conclusion? I think the more detail you can provide on this, the more helpful it will be for investors. And the second question, now that you are a few months into Power24, What do you think might be the biggest risks or hurdles which could prevent Worldline from delivering on its Power24 objectives? Thank you.

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

I will take the second one, Josh. I'm happy to hear you. I trust you are well. Well, Power24, let me state very clearly that we are in full execution mode. Everything is working absolutely as per plan. And to be frank, we don't see hurdle that could derail us from delivering at minimum what we announced, i.e. these 200 million euros cash cost savings in a run rate for 2025. This is really something that is perfectly on track on all fronts. We, of course, manage a proper social dialogue, I must say a very high quality and transparent dialogue. It's not every year that we do such a transformation. But so far I must say really so good. All the management team are fully convinced of all the levers that are making the key pillars of the Power24 transformation. You know that we don't invent anything new here. We are activating proven levers that we know extremely well and that we already run for certain of these at a certain scale already like offshore. And so for us, this is really just making sure we keep the pace. The pace is the name of this game. And so far, it's absolutely on track. Medium term organic growth, I can definitely, I mean, as we said, we see for MS, this normalized. we are absolutely convinced that, at minimum, MS will be, at minimum, a high single-digit growth perspective in line with our medium-term trajectory.

speaker
Grégory
Group CFO, Worldline

And indeed, I mean, we have a... You can see the 6.5% underlying growth in this current macroeconomic condition as a good basis for normalized growth. Plus, we have upcoming growth levers kicking in Fairly soon, we have closed the credit agriculture and venture call. As we said when we announced it, it should be a 1% kicker to organic growth going forward from 2025 onwards. We are also post-Power24 spending more and more on new product innovation and platforms, and the target by the end of the year is to have around about three-quarters of our spend on the new target environment. So these are all positive levers that we see contributing to reach this high single digit number that Gilles was alluding to.

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

And I take your question, Josh, as a very clear invite and be sure we'll do so to provide a very clear, let's say, growth algorithm for MS at the Capital Market Day. So you can really fully understand indeed the structural components things linked, for example, to cashless momentum in Europe, as we can see, the evolution of the market around, but also specific or company-specific growth accelerators that we highlighted for some of these today in certain wins, as you could see with ISV distribution or geographic corridors opening, or specific ones that are related, like Credit Agricole or Caixa Centrale.

speaker
George Levin
Analyst, Autonomous Research

Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Emmanuel Mathod from OdoBHF. Please go ahead.

speaker
Emmanuel Mathod
Analyst, ODDO BHF

Yes, good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. First, does your sales growth in new markets such as Italy, France starting next year, is it profitable growth? Or is it expensive growth in the short term waiting on your EBITDA margin for merchant services? Second, where are you regarding generative AI? Is it a transforming technology for our online? Can it drive positively your sales and your productivity in the medium term? And my last question. Gilles, what do you expect from the next board members with the new chairman? How can they help to restore confidence with these investors? Thank you.

speaker
Marc-Henri Deporte
Deputy CEO, Worldline

Thank you, Emmanuel. I can answer your first two questions and we'll let the third one to Gilles. When it comes to the profitability of the new sales initiative, I can confirm it is very good. In particular, the Italian market is a market where the price levels are very decent, and we are working in this market above a global average of world and profitability. So, obviously, supporting and helpful in terms of overall profitability. And the way the critical deal was structured, is also allowing this initiative to be a support and a development of overall warline margin momentum. You know that it is the logic of what we are building, working and organizing ourselves around profitable growth. I would even add profitable market share gains in Italy. Coming to the GNI, definitely it's an initiative we launched and on which I organized a team to have a specific dedicated effort in February last year. So we have one year of work and initiative in this domain. The most obvious one is obviously to equip all our developers with resources assisted GNI code development tools to increase their productivity. That's a first obvious step and we are working on, not working, but even rolling out now tools and solutions to support our customer service or sales team to gain additional productivity or in topics like answering RFPs with pre-compiled solutions and answers leveraging the overall documentation pack of Warline. So having put all our documents into a dedicated environment which can be addressed through the latest AI tools, including open AI ones, but not only. We are testing and leveraging different technologies. You know we have also a partnership with Google, so we are not restricting our use of the AI to one only engine. And another topic for customer service, so you have the typical case of augmented agents, so people answering calls and having a support of GNI tools to answer the more complicated questions, allowing level one customer service agents to answer questions that are usually handled by level two or level three. Well, that's typically the kind of things we are doing with the GNI technology and rolling out through the World Bank portfolio to develop our productivity. It is in our DNA. We are rather an engineer company. It is in our DNA to catch the latest technology and to get the benefit of it.

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

Hello, Emmanuel. And for your third question, thank you. I would say that, of course, the new profiles coming into the board at the moment where the company is actually entering into a new phase of its strategic development will certainly be very helpful to bring a fresh eye on what we do, the way we've been doing things. There is a very vast and diversified array of skills and competence starting with a future new chairman who has been very experienced in accompanying financial industry transformation very successfully. new skills coming with Sylvia Steinmeier related to technology and IT or even a reinforcement of our HR related skill with Sylvia Steinmeier and of course Olivier Gavalda bringing an extensive bank and payment expertise coming to the board. So I think this will bring a fresh eye, new challenges to the management team and to the way things have been doing while recognizing that the first 10 years of the IPO mandate that was to create scale and reach And the critical mass in the fragmented European payment industry has been very well supported by the current board and the current board members. So it is a new phase. And this fresh air will certainly help us to revisit many things and to receive also new challenges, which are always some and good. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

Thank you. We will now take the next question. from the line of Sandeep Deshpande from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

speaker
Sandeep Deshpande
Analyst, JP Morgan

Yeah, hi. Good morning, everybody. Thanks for having me on. My question is on two topics. Firstly, on the competitive environment, have you seen any changes in the competitive environment in the key markets in Germany or any other markets that you're competing in? And if so, from where have you seen it? And secondly, you bought an asset in platforms a couple of years ago. What are you doing in platforms at this point? Have you got any engagement on the platform side?

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

Hello, Sandeep. Good morning. I think I will give the floor to Marc-Henri. And I think you are referring, indeed, to our investment into OPP, I suppose, indeed, which is dedicated to platform. Marc-Henri?

speaker
Marc-Henri Deporte
Deputy CEO, Worldline

Thank you Sandip. In terms of competitive landscape, we don't see major changes as we speak in terms of players and the well-known players on the market. Still the same players around and the same overall competitive landscape, which is a dynamic competitive landscape. What we observed is that the market is evolving more and more toward partnerships, partnerships including working more with platforms. And you could see in our communication this quarter that we mentioned what we achieved with Tabesto or with Lidio in international partnership development. So we are very active on this front, and we clearly intend to develop this aspect even more so. And one of the key assets to do this development and to achieve this development will indeed be OPP, this company on which we invested. We were passed to control a couple of years ago. And we are, and I am specifically, personally, dedicating a significant amount of time on reinforcing the use of OPP to develop our business with platforms, ISVs, and boosting this revenue stream in which the potential is very significant because we can develop a fully compliant solution for the European market where we see the situation is still heterogeneous in this market in terms of what's existing today. and which will grant us an opportunity to have a new acceleration layer in our overall MS portfolio. So it is a top priority. OPP, by the way, is developing very well and extending its own go-to-market and pipe jointly with Warline. A lot of ourselves is now happening through the Warline Salesforce, and we are very confident to make it a great success.

speaker
Gilles Grappinet
Group CEO, Worldline

Thank you very much, all of you, for having been with us this morning. It's time now to close this call. Looking forward to our next interaction together in the coming weeks and the coming world shows. Have a nice day, guys.

speaker
Operator
Conference Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

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