Nexi, the European PayTech, and PayPal have announced a significant expansion of their partnership, embedding PayPal’s payments ecosystem directly into Nexi’s merchant platform across five EU countries.
The collaboration between two firms, which originally launched in Italy in 2016, will now extend to the Nordics, covering Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland, as well as Poland. At its core is a structural shift: Nexi will act as a collecting Payment Service Provider (PSP) for PayPal transactions, meaning merchants no longer need to manage PayPal as a separate platform. Instead, PayPal becomes a native feature within Nexi’s existing merchant infrastructure.
For Nexi, adding PayPal natively to its stack strengthens its pitch as a one-stop infrastructure provider. For PayPal, embedding within an established PSP dramatically widens its merchant distribution without the overhead of direct acquisition.
For small and medium-sized businesses, this matters in practical terms. Managing multiple payment providers typically means separate contracts, separate dashboards, separate settlement cycles, and duplicate reconciliation work. Under the new model, onboarding, fund management, and transaction reporting are consolidated into a single system, reducing administrative burden and improving visibility over cash flow.
“By integrating PayPal directly into our platform, we give merchants a powerful tool to grow their business through a simple, scalable digital solution,” said Roberto Catanzaro, Chief Business Officer, Merchant Solutions at Nexi Group.
Italy will serve as the most advanced market under the partnership, featuring a full integration of PayPal Checkout alongside PayPal Pay Later — a buy now, pay later (BNPL) offering that gives consumers the option to split purchases into instalments across 3, 6, 12, or 24 months. With conversion rate optimisation a persistent challenge for online retailers, the flexibility offered at checkout is positioned as a meaningful commercial lever for Italian merchants.
Samba Natarajan, General Manager Europe at PayPal, described the expansion as part of a broader strategic intent: “This collaboration strengthens our commitment to making digital payments simple and convenient” for merchants across the continent.
Beyond the immediate operational benefits, both companies have signalled that the partnership will evolve. The two firms are actively exploring AI-powered payment experiences and new digital commerce models, though specifics remain limited at this stage.
With digital commerce continuing to grow across Southern and Northern Europe, the timing of the rollout into Poland and the Nordics appears deliberate — targeting markets where online retail adoption is accelerating and merchant appetite for streamlined infrastructure is high.
