Finextra reported on 26 July that:

• the Italian payments processor SIA has acquired a controlling interest in telecomms firm Emmecon as part of a strategic plan to build a European infrastructure simplifying the link between merchants and banks at the point-of-sale
• SIA has acquired 51% of the share capital of Turin-based Emmecom, with the right to exercise the option for the purchase of the remaining 49% in 2016
• Massimo Arrighetti, CEO of SIA, says: "From today, banks and businesses have at their disposal a new family of innovative services, which will soon be available at European level and will go to join Sepa payments, e-money and access to the principal stock markets, all with a single, ultra-fast connection."

Appartently the integrated platform will gather the traffic of card payments generated by POS terminals and deliver it to the authorisation systems of banks, terminal handlers and other acquirers.

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With the increased digitisation and internationalisation of payment flows it makes sense for payment processors to acquire telecommunications companies. Merchants can look forward to being able to rationalise their domestic networks and acquirers for the collection of POS payments, and to take advantage of new international payment Apps that SIA is considering.