Brussels, 24 October 2022
The European Commission has approved, under the EU Merger Regulation, the merger of Vipps AS of Norway and MobilePay A/S of Denmark (together the ‘merging companies’), which will be jointly controlled by Danske Bank A/S of Denmark, DNB Bank ASA (‘DNB’), SpareBank 1 Betaling AS (‘SB1′), Eika VBB AS (‘Eika’), Balder Betaling AS (‘Balder’) and Vipps Holding AS, all of Norway. The merging companies are providers of mobile payment services. Danske Bank and DNB are commercial banks. SB1, Eika, Balder and Vipps Holding are holding companies owned by groups of banks. The Commission concluded that it has no competition concerns, as although the merging companies’ activities overlap in the provision of payment services, Vipps operates in Norway and MobilePay in Denmark and Finland. The Commission also found that the merging companies are unlikely to start competing with each other in these countries without the merger. Last, the Commission found that the parties would not have the ability nor the incentive to engage in foreclosure practices. For these reasons, the proposed acquisition was approved. The transaction was examined under the normal merger review procedure. More information is available on the Commission’s competition website, in the public case register under the case number M.10935.
Source – EU Commission