Equens was established in 2006 as Europe's first pan-European payment processor. This followed the merger of Europe's two largest payment processors: Interpay from The Netherlands and the Transaktionsinstitut für Zahlungsverkehrsdienstleistungen AG from Germany.
In July 2008, Equens SE was formed as Societas Europaea, initially operating as a holding company. In September 2008, Equens SE extended its activities to Italia, by forming Equens Italia, a 50:50 joint venture with Italy's Istituto Centrale delle Banche Popolari Italiane. In 2011, Equens Italia became a wholly owned subsidiary of Equens SE, and in 2013 it turned into a permanent establishment of Equens.[2]
In 2016, equensWorldline was created, following the merger between Equens SE and Financial Services and Merchant Services activities of Worldline in the Benelux and Germany, and to a lesser extent France [2]
Initially, Worldline hold 63.6% of the shares, the rest (36.4%) being held by Dutch, German and Italian banks.[3] However, Worldline had a call option on the minority shares, which it exercised in 2019, hence becoming the sole owner of equensWorldline.[1]
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