Intesa Sanpaolo, a banking service provider completed the acquisition of a 9.9% stake in Nexi, a payment service provider, from Mercury for $727m. “The transaction will enable Intesa Sanpaolo to extract proper value from the acquiring activities currently carried out internally, through the contribution of its business line - taking into account that operating efficiently in this sector, in a competitive scenario of international scope, requires greater investment and economies of scale - while retaining an interest in a business with significant growth prospects,” Intesa Sanpaolo.