FIS Announces Acquisition of Global Card Acquiring Giant Worldpay
U.S. issuer processor Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) has announced a €38.1 billion acquisition of global merchant acquiring giant Worldpay Inc.
FIS is an international provider of payment processing software and other financial services technology, who currently serve clients in over 130 countries and have operations in 45 countries including Germany, Spain and Hong Kong. The US issuer processor has announced that they are buying Worldpay (WP) who are the largest merchant acquirer in the world with 40 billion transactions processed in 2018.
The deal will have annual revenue of more than €10.6 billion. The purchase price includes a €31 billion cash consideration, as well as covering €7.1 billion of Worldpay’s debt.
Worldpay Inc was formed in January 2018 as the result of a merger between UK-based acquirer Worldpay and US-based acquirer Vantiv. At the time, the €9 billion deal created the world’s largest merchant acquirer.
Callum Godwin
Chief Economist
This is by far the largest deal ever agreed in the payments industry.
We hope that the synergies created by this deal will result in benefits for all stakeholders, including merchants. Although FIS and Worldpay operate largely different products in largely different markets, in lieu of the plethora of recent deals an acquisition of this size with surely be closely scrutinised by competition authorities.