Nexi

Its roots lie in ICBPI, the central institute of Italy's cooperative banks, which was bought by private equity and renamed Nexi in 2017. It listed in Milan in 2019 and then swallowed two giants within a year: Denmark's Nets in 2021 and its Italian rival SIA shortly after. Nets itself had been formed in 2010 from Denmark's PBS and Norway's BBS, and runs among other things Dankort.

The result acquires card payments for hundreds of thousands of merchants across the Nordics, Italy and Germany, and processes cards for many banks. It is payments consolidation in concentrated form: buy volume, merge the platforms, and hope the savings arrive before the next fintech makes it all cheaper.