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M&A activity continues to be very activity this past week in the merchant acquiring industry with several noteworthy deals announced. To start, Stripe announced it has acquired OpenChannel, a provider of app marketplace software. This acquisition enables Stripe to further build out their third-party integrations and online tools for their merchant base. As part of this deal, OpenChannel’s team will join Stripe’s remote hubs. Separately, Fortis has announced their agreement to acquire VIP Integrated Payments for an undisclosed sum. This acquisition is positioned around expanding Fortis’ enterprise resource planning (ERP) and VAR channels in the B2B space, as well as bringing additional senior members to their executive team.
In other M&A news, Worldline has entered into a strategic partnership with Eurobank, which included acquiring an 80% stake in their merchant acquiring business. This portfolio includes 123,000 merchants, who are largely positioned around eastern Europe, and represent an annual payment volume of approximately $8 billion. As part of this deal, Worldline will pay about $290 million in cash at closing. Unconnectedly, Paymentology and Tutuka announced their merger as part of their global strategy of creating a new payments and card processing enterprise. These two businesses largely serve as issuer-processors that facilitate payments for Mastercard, Visa, and UnionPay cards across nearly 50 countries.