OTTMAR BLOCHING BECOMES NEW CEO OF THE PAYONE JOINT VENTURE

Frankfurt am Main/Vienna, 16.03.2023

Worldline, a leading global provider of payment services, and the DSV Group, the Payment Competence Center of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, have appointed Ottmar Bloching as Managing Director of the PAYONE joint venture, which also includes PAYONE GmbH, with effect from 1 April 2023. He succeeds Niklaus Santschi, who has been CEO of the joint venture since January 2017 and has been managing Worldline's Merchant Services division in parallel to this role since September 1, 2022.

Ottmar Bloching (57), who holds a degree in banking, brings three decades of wide-ranging expertise in the finance and payment industry: He has been a member of the DSV Group's management board since 2015, where he is holistically responsible for all payment-related topics. In this role, Ottmar Bloching was one of the key drivers behind the transformation of PAYONE's predecessor companies B+S Card Service and BS PAYONE into today's PAYONE GmbH - one of the leading payment service providers in Germany and Austria and a joint venture between the DSV Group and the French Worldline Group.

Prior to his career as a member of the DSV Group's management board, Ottmar Bloching held various positions in payment and card strategy at Citicorp Kartenservice, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse and the umbrella organization of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband (DSGV). He moved to Visa Europe in 2007 as General Manager Germany and was promoted to Regional Managing Director Central Europe in 2014.

In his new role, Ottmar Bloching will continue to pursue and develop the joint venture's existing strategy: One focus will be on intensifying customer support in the small and medium-sized company segment. The aim here is to meet the expectations and requirements of the savings banks, which traditionally have local roots throughout Germany and are served by PAYONE under the "S-Händlerservice" brand. This includes expanding and supporting direct sales as well as further adapting the service portfolio to regional requirements in order to ensure new customer acquisition and joint growth with the savings banks in the future. Another focus will be the final consolidation of the various technical platforms as well as the further expansion of the IT infrastructure and the comprehensive digital transformation across all of PAYONE's POS & E-Commerce divisions in order to ensure customer centricity, innovative strength and sustainable profitability in the long term.

Dr. Michael Stollarz, CEO of the DSV Group and member of the Worldline Board of Directors, summarizes: "In Ottmar Bloching, we have been able to recruit a proven payment expert for this important position, who is also very familiar with the market challenges of the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe in the area of digital payment offerings. He recognized very early on that the predecessor institution of today's PAYONE, the then wholly-owned savings bank subsidiary B+S Card Service GmbH, needed a global and strong partner to guarantee future growth and internationalization in the face of ongoing international consolidation. Thanks in part to his tireless commitment, this has been a complete success: in 2017, we started looking for a suitable investor and found one in the Ingenico Group. With the acquisition of the Ingenico Group by Worldline in October 2020, PAYONE became part of an even larger global universe as an independent joint venture, which has very high standards, particularly in the areas of key account management, financial services and data processing. PAYONE and its customers - including the savings banks, of course - will benefit from this in the long term. We are delighted to be represented by Ottmar Bloching as the new CEO of PAYONE in the Worldline Group and look forward to continuing our close and trusting cooperation!"

Gilles Grapinet, Chairman of the Board and CEO Worldline, comments: "PAYONE and the associated strategic partnership with the German Sparkassen, one of Europe's leading banking groups, is the largest and most significant joint venture within the Worldline Group. PAYONE serves as a role model and has an immense and very positive impact on our entire organization: in recent months, it has been the blueprint for further mergers and the associated establishment of banking partnerships in Australia, Greece and Italy. It is therefore all the more important for us to have a long-standing, valued and experienced colleague at the helm of this important player, who will ensure the continuity of successful business operations, while at the same time driving forward the support of growth strategies within the Worldline Group and helping to shape our declared ambition to transform into a global paytech. On behalf of the Worldline family, I warmly welcome Ottmar to this very important position in our Group and wish him every success in further developing PAYONE for the benefit of customers, employees and for the joint success of our strategic partnership with the DSV Group."

Niklaus Santschi, outgoing CEO PAYONE and Global Head Merchant Services and member of the Executive Committee Worldline, adds: "I can only welcome the decision of our shareholders to elect Ottmar Bloching as my successor. My mandate six years ago as CEO of the then BS Card Service - for which he was largely responsible - included mobilizing the company, merging the former PAYONE in Kiel with B+S Card Service to ensure the fusion of stationary and e-commerce business and leading an investor process that ultimately resulted in three mergers. Ottmar Bloching is the right person at the right time: he has known both sides of the table from the very beginning, has driven and witnessed the transformation to the current PAYONE at close quarters and knows the interests of the savings banks as well as those of Worldline. I am certain that he will continue the work of the past few years to establish PAYONE as a major payment service provider in Germany and Austria in the interests of the shareholders and put his own stamp on it. The signs are good: despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, he will use the momentum to create innovation for our customers in Europe's largest and growing market, ensure competitiveness and leverage synergies in the interests of both shareholders. I am therefore very pleased to hand over the baton and look forward to continuing to work together as part of PAYONE's affiliation with Worldline's Merchant Services division."

Unchanged composition of the other management members

The Management Board, which was appointed jointly by Worldline and the DSV Group, will remain unchanged under the leadership of Ottmar Bloching: Ottmar Bloching will be supported in the management of the company by Frank Hartmann, CFO, Björn Hoffmeyer, CCO, and Roland Schaar, CTOO.

Dr. Michael Stollarz takes over as Chairman of the PAYONE Supervisory Board

The function of Chairman of the PAYONE Supervisory Board, which Ottmar Bloching will relinquish in the course of his appointment, will be assumed by Dr. Michael Stollarz, Chairman of the Management Board of the DSV Group, until further notice.

About PAYONE

PAYONE is a leading payment provider in Germany and Austria. In stationary retail, mobile or online - PAYONE helps retailers and service providers with the challenges of cashless payment. As a full-service payment service provider, PAYONE ensures digital payment processes that work quickly, easily and reliably. PAYONE develops individual solutions for all industries and company sizes in accordance with the highest security standards.

PAYONE's pioneering omnichannel concepts help retailers to offer their customers cross-channel shopping experiences. PAYONE pursues the goal of enabling integrated payment across all touchpoints. PAYONE processes 5.4 billion transactions per year for 277,000 customers. With around 1,400 employees at four locations, the company also offers numerous value-added services that go far beyond the traditional payment business. PAYONE is a joint venture between Worldline and the DSV Group. PAYONE works throughout Europe for well-known global brands as well as for small and medium-sized companies. These include Deutsche Bahn, Rossmann, PUMA, home24 and Sansibar.

www.payone.com

About Worldline

Worldline [Euronext: WLN] is a global market leader in payments and the technology partner of choice for merchants, banks and acquirers. With over 18,000 employees in more than 40 countries, Worldline provides sustainable, trusted and secure solutions to help its customers around the world grow. The services offered by Worldline include national and international commercial acquiring for both bricks-and-mortar and online business, the highly secure processing of payment transactions and a wide range of digital services. In 2021, Worldline generated pro forma sales of just under 4 billion euros. worldline.com

Corporate purpose

We develop and operate leading digital payment and transaction solutions that enable sustainable economic growth and strengthen trust and security in our society. Our solutions are environmentally friendly and accompany everyone on their journey in the digital world

About the DSV Group

The DSV Group is the central service provider and provider of integrated solutions for the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe, the German market leader in the financial services sector. It generates consolidated sales of around 630 million euros (2021). Headquartered in Stuttgart, the company has a nationwide presence and employs around 2,400 people. Four specialized competence brands characterize the DSV Group's market presence: S-Communication Services, S-Management Services, S-Payment and S-Public Services.

Press contact DSV Group:

Daniel Knellesen,
Head of Group Communications
Am Wallgraben 115| 70565 Stuttgart
Phone: +49 711 782-22736
daniel.knellesen@dsv-gruppe.de

Press contacts Worldline:

Susanne Stöger
Phone: +43 1 71701 6524
susanne.stoeger@worldline.com