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Clear2Pay, a Belgium-based payment-technology vendor, said Monday it had secured 50 million euros (US$74.3 million) from investors. The funds come from Aquiline Capital Partners LLC, a New York-based private equity firm, and from "current Clear2Pay investors," the two firms say in a statement. The investment will fund the Belgian firm's "next stage of growth and potential strategic acquisitions," the statement says. Immediate comment was unavailable. Earlier this year, Clear2Pay bought Ereon, a 2-year-old payments-consulting firm based in the Netherlands (CardLine Global, 1 July). The company said the acquisition would help Clear2Pay increase its expertise in such areas as the Single Euro Payment Area and the Payment Services Directive, which are ongoing efforts to create common markets for payments in Europe. A week earlier, Clear2Pay announced it had bought banking-services vendor ETH Tech Ltd., a Beijing firm founded in 2004 with clients that include China Construction Bank, Bank of China and the People's Bank of China (CardLine Global, 26 June).
