Ant looks to buy Dutch firm; Adyen seeks merchants in Iceland

Ant Group is closing in on a deal to acquire MultiSafepay, a Dutch payment group, a move that would deepen the Chinese technology company's expansion into western markets. The deal would value MultiSafepay at $200 million, reports Reuters, adding that the acquisition is subject to regulatory approval. Ant, which operates Alipay and is affiliated with the e-commerce firm Alibaba, acquired Singapore-based payment company 2C2P in 2022 and U.K.-based payment firm Worldfirst in 2019. Ant also had an agreement in place to acquire MoneyGram in 2018, but that deal fell apart under regulatory pressure. Ant's founder, billionaire Jack Ma, recently ended his relationship with the firm, part of an effort to smooth the relationship between the conglomerate and Chinese regulators. —John Adams

Visa has partnered with TECH5, a biometric and identity technology company, to build technology that can be sold to global governments as part of federated identity projects. The government-issued IDs could be used for payments, business entry, access to government buildings and other services. The Geneva, Switzerland-based TECH5 develops software and platforms to enable contactless biometric image capture and other emerging forms of automated identity vetting. The technology company's ID systems can be embedded into Visa's payment systems and other services from the card network, such as payment crime prevention and ID fraud. The two firms are focused on building ID systems that can be used across industries, as well as in different countries. Other large technology companies such as Google are boosting investment in digital ID, betting that security will be a major focus in the next year. —John Adams

Dutch payment company Adyen has begun working with Straumur, a company that processes about a quarter of the payments in Iceland, including for grocery stores, restaurants, pharmacies and gas stations. Straumur's technology covers in-person payments, mobile and e-commerce for about 1,700 merchants. Adyen will be the acquiring bank for these merchants, and will work with Straumur on technology projects. That includes improving the ability of merchants to collect data from different payment options on the same platform to ease customer service, marketing and other functions. Adyen has added both digital and physical payment technology over the past year and has extended its merchant reach with partnerships such as a December collaboration with Swedish financial institution and buy now/pay later lender Klarna. —John Adams