FIS in $43 billion deal for Worldpay as fintech consolidation ramps up

The financial services technology company FIS has agreed to buy Worldpay in a deal that is valued at $43 billion and allows FIS to counter the transaction processing scale Fiserv received when it acquired First Data this year.

The merger price is based on a $34 billion bid plus $9 billion of Worldpay's debt.

The deal builds on a number of previous acquisitions by FIS and its rivals. The growth of e-commerce and digital transactions has pressured broad-based financial IT companies like FIS and Fiserv to broaden processing technology.

Worldpay, formerly Vantiv (Vantiv purchased Worldpay in 2018 and took its name), combines Vantiv's American acquiring strength with the original Worldpay's international reach. Worldpay has also recently increased its ability to process a greater volume of relatively smaller transactions, a staple of serving online marketplaces.

FIS will also be able to bolster its e-commerce and payment processing, while Worldpay will expand geographically. FIS has been expanding its merchant acquiring strategy, most recently cutting payment card reward deals.

Worldpay processes more than 40 billion transactions annually, supporting more than 300 payment types across more than 120 currencies. “Scale matters in our rapidly changing industry,” Gary Norcross, the chairman, president and chief executive of FIS, said in a press release.

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Fintech Payment processing M&A FIS U.S. U.K.
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