UBS EMEA Payments Innovation Event Series "The path forward for traditio..."

Research evidence excerpt

UBS EMEA Payments Innovation Event Series "The path forward for traditio..."

Global Research

26 May 2026ab

UBS EMEA Payments Innovation Event Equities

Europe including UKSeries

Diversified Technology Services

The path forward for traditional payment

Justin Forsythe, CPA

companies in Europe Analyst

justin.forsythe@ubs.com

+44-20-7567 4191

Mahir Bidani, ACA

Insights and Discussion

Analyst

We hosted a fireside chat with Jonathan Hughes, Partner and Managing Director in the mahir.bidani@ubs.com

Performance & Technology practice at Alix Partners. Prior to Alix Partners, Hughes spent +44-20-7568 3963

over three decades in Financial Services and FinTech in the UK, North America and Asia, Michael Briest

notably as former COO of Worldpay (2012-2016) and CEO Natwest Tyl (2017-2019). Analyst

The discussion explored the scale and distribution moats of legacy payment companies, michael.briest@ubs.com

the challenge of managing cost discipline vs product investment, the appeal to private +44-20-7568 8367

equity ownership, and more. We also discuss consolidation and traditional payments

landscape in Theme 15 of our industry slide deck If the Future of Money is Digital… Then

FinTech is the Future. Below we summarize key insights from the discussion.

Scale and Distribution as Enduring Moats in European Payments

Our speaker argued that the last 18 months have meaningfully shifted investor attention

back towards traditional European payment processors, in part due to the notable take

private transactions in the space (e.g., Worldpay, Nuvei, Avidxchange, etc.). While our

speaker acknowledged that incumbents have, in aggregate, lost share to the modern,

tech centric competitors over time, he stressed that the core economic strengths of the