PeP Acquires Polish Mobile POS App Simapka

Polskie ePłatności (PeP) has acquired a majority stake in Team4U, the owner of Simapka, a mobile app for owners of shops and service points of sale (POS), a press release said Thursday (July 28).

Simapka allows for registering SIM cards, selling gift cards, number transfer between operators and loans and insurance features.

PeP is part of Nexi Group, the European PayTech company, and Robert Hoffman, CEO of Nets Merchant Services, also part of Nexi Group, said the idea was to build “an ecosystem in which payments will be supplemented by numerous additional services offered by POS.”

“Our goal is to ensure retail outlets across Europe benefit from the rapid digitization of payments via solutions like Simapka’s mobile application. We’re proud to welcome Team4U into the Nexi family and look forward to helping them continue to grow in the Polish market.”

The release notes that the National Bank of Poland’s statistics say there were 100,000 new terminals added in Poland in 2021, with over 30,000 of them being PeP ones.

PeP is trying to become a leader of cashless payments in Poland, and it has acquired other companies such as NeoTu, PayUp, TopCard, Billbird and PayLane over the past five years.

In 2020, PeP was bought by Nets, with PYMNTS writing that this allowed the latter company to get into the Polish marketplace.

See also: Nets Expands Poland Presence With PeP Acquisition

That market was sought after because it had a low card penetration along with a double-digit growth in card usage at the time, with the country looking to boost its usage of cards over cash.

“PeP is the fastest-growing payment technology company in one of the fastest-growing digital payment economies in Europe, and we have been impressed by the PeP team, their high-quality in-house operation and business performance,” said Bo Nilsson, CEO of the Nets Group.