Global Payments closes Worldpay purchase, issuer sale to FIS

• Key insights: Global Payments has completed its acquisition of payment processor Worldpay from bank technology seller FIS and GTCR, while Global Payments closed the sale of its card issuer technology to FIS.
• What's at stake: Global Payments and FIS are focusing more on their traditional business lines amid competition from payment-technology firms. 
• Forward look: Global Payments can boost its digital-asset business, while FIS is embracing agentic commerce. 

The pair of huge mergers between payment and bank technology companies has crossed the finish line.
Global Payments has completed its $24.3 billion acquisition of payment processor Worldpay from bank technology seller Fidelity National Information Services and GTCR, FIS' private-equity owner. At the same time, Global Payments closed the $13.5 billion sale of its card issuer technology to FIS and GTCR.

The Worldpay acquisition includes $1.6 billion worth of tax assets. The Global Payments/FIS deals, which were first struck about ten months ago, aimed to reduce FIS' dependence on merchant acquiring and Global Payments' exposure to card issuing technology, which is generally sold to banks. 

Combined, Global Payments will cover more than 6 million merchant locations and process more than $3.7 trillion in payment volume over 94 billion transactions in 175 countries. 

"Combining with Worldpay expands our capabilities and increases our geographic reach while providing additional, complementary distribution channels, multiplying what's possible for our clients and partners," said Global Payments CEO Cameron Bready in a release. Bready also said "being a scale player in this industry matters more than ever."Global Payments said it would invest more than $1 billion yearly on technology initiatives, and projects the deal will produce yearly cost synergies of $600 million and revenue synergies of at least $200 million. 

In addition to scale, the merger can also help Global Payments' stablecoin strategy through  Worldpay's collaboration with cryptocurrency-technology firm BVNK, which enables Worldpay's clients to process USDC payments. Worldpay also recently entered a partnership with buy now/pay later lender Affirm to integrate Affirm's lending options into Worldpay's software clients.

The combined Global Payments/Worldpay also adds users for Global Payments' revamped payment product suite, which is branded Genius. A combination of more than a dozen new and existing payment systems, Genius launched in May 2025 for restaurants and retailers in June and large enterprise clients in September. FIS marked the deal's closing by saying it would sell technology under the FIS Total Issuing Solutions, a brand designed to draw attention to FIS' focus on bank and card issuing technology. FIS also launched an agentic commerce product that will enable banks to conduct commerce with AI agents and card networks.

"We are pleased to have closed this strategic acquisition ahead of schedule, enabling us to start 2026 in a strong position to deliver greater value to our financial institution and corporate clients," FIS CEO and President Stephanie Ferris said in a release.

In a research note, analysts from William Blair said FIS will count 60% of the world's top 150 banks as customers, opening up a $1.4 billion cross-sell opportunity and an additional $930 million of white space. Global Payments' issuer business is expected to grow revenue 4% on a constant-currency basis and expand margins by at least 50 basis points in 2025, William Blair said; and Global Payments' management indicated a strong pipeline of new business that extends into 2027.

 "Genius gives Global Payments a viable product for the small to medium business market," analysts from Jeffries said. Regarding FIS, Jeffries analysts said "bank IT spend should be strong in FY26 and pricing pressure on renewals is easing."

The latest announcement from Global Payments, FIS and Worldpay grew out of a series of M&A activity seven years ago that involved legacy companies designed to broaden scale across payment processing and card issuing as technology-focused rivals such as PayPal, Square and Stripe gained ground and began targeting larger merchants. The payments M&A wave in 2019 totaled more than $100 billion and included Fiserv's acquisition of First Data, FIS' purchase of WorldPay and Global Payments' merger with TSYS.

Within four years, the initial FIS/Worldpay combination started to fray. FIS in 2023 announced plans to spin off Worldpay as part of a strategy to enable Worldpay to make acquisitions in a depressed environment for fintechs. That plan changed five months later, when FIS decided to sell a majority stake in Worldpay to GTCR.