Mastercard deal at the forefront of third-quarter payments M&A

Mastercard's $924 million acquisition of VocaLink represented the highest value acquisition in the payments industry during the third quarter of 2016, according to Berkery Noyes' mergers and acquisitions trend report.

The investment bankers highlighted Mastercard's deal, designed to help it get a foothold within Europe's faster payments initiatives, as one of the top 10 transactions overall in financial technology for the quarter.

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Deutsche Borse Group's $14 billion acquisition of the London Stock Exchange Group PLC topped the list inoverall financial technology.

Other payments deals of note included the Alipay unit of Alibaba Group acquiring Eye Verify for $100 million to add biometrics technology to its e-commerce and mobile platforms.

Swedish mobile wallet provider Seamless acquired MeaWallet for $5 million, bringing in-house a company that was already providing technology behind Seamless' SEQR wallet.

Also, Amsterdam-based TerraPay acquired Pay2global to bolster its money transfer services, while Net Element acquired Pay Star to strengthen payroll and merchant management services.

Total transaction volume in the financial technology sector in the first three quarters of 2016 increased by 7% compared to last year, from 321 to 342. The transaction value in that period also rose 7% from $42 billion last year to $44.9 billion this year.