Nexi and Alpha Bank announced that they have joined forces to transform merchant solutions in Greece and pave the way for a new era of digital payments in the country. The two Groups announced the creation of a new company, Nexi Payments Greece, which will provide innovative merchant solutions and payment acceptance products and services to the Greek market. The launch of the new company was hosted by the CEO of Nexi Group Paolo Bertoluzzo, the Alpha Bank Group CEO Vassilios Psaltis and the Nexi Payments Greece CEO Dionysis Grigoratos.

The integrated solutions offered by the joint venture between Nexi and Alpha Bank, will allow merchants, citizens and public sector organizations to benefit from innovative and state-of-the-art services that will encourage the uptake of digital payment services in Greece. Digital payments acceptance will be drastically upgraded to become faster, easier and more secure for merchants and businesses, through the provision of ready-to-use tools that will allow them to develop and manage their customers' payments more easily. At the same time, end consumers will enjoy a new, simplified and cashless shopping experience.

Nexi Payments Greece aspires to bring Greece a step closer to digital transformation and a cashless payments culture, by boosting payments digitalization, simplifying transactions and empowering merchants and consumers for a new era of payments. The closing of the transaction between Nexi and Alpha Bank that marked the initiation of Nexi Payments Greece, was completed on June 30, 2022. Alpha Bank has carved out its merchant acquiring business unit, by way of a spin-off, to a new entity that received a payment institution license.

Nexi holds a 51% stake in the new entity, while, through the execution of a long-term marketing and distribution agreement by the parties, Alpha Bank remains committed to the payments sector and will be the exclusive distributor for products and services in the Greek market through its widespread Branch Network across Greece. Nexi will consolidate the new company, which is expected to contribute over 196,000 POS terminals and Euro 12 billion of volumes. Nexi Payments Greece is expected to generate approximately Euro 94 million of revenues in 20221, on a pro-forma basis and pre- synergies.

Nexi will finance the Transaction entirely through existing cash resources. Following finalization of this milestone transaction, Alpha Bank concludes its capital strengthening actions announced in its "Project Tomorrow" business plan, which will fully offset the impact from the NPE transactions that will mature in second quarter, thus facilitating the achievement of its strategic target of reaching a single-digit NPE ratio in the first half of 2022. With the completion of the Transaction, which is consistent with its strategic vision, Nexi establishes a market-leading position in the fast-growing Greek payments market, further expanding its merchant acquiring operations, while increasing revenue diversification across highly attractive and underpenetrated European countries.

The new company will also be well positioned to capture further organic and inorganic growth opportunities in the country.