July 31st 2019
FIS Completes Worldpay Acquisition in the Latest Wave of Consolidation
FIS has completed its $43 billion acquisition of Worldpay – the more recent in a rush of U.S. payments industry deal announcements this week, following the closing of Fiserv’s $22 billion purchase of First Data and the breakdown of the Bank of America Merchant Services joint venture.
The combined entity sees a union between two leading payments industry players, although there is no direct product crossover between FIS and Worldpay. Worldpay Inc is one of the largest merchant processors in the world, processing more than 40 billion transactions worth over $1 trillion annually. It is a market leader in both the U.S. and the UK, and has a significant presence in the global ecommerce space as both a processor and a gateway. The company was created as a result of U.S.-based Vantiv’s $10 billion purchase of UK-based Worldpay in 2018.
Meanwhile, FIS is a leading provider of core and issuer processing solutions in the U.S., and also owns the local debit network NYCE. FIS acts as a competitor to Fiserv in many markets including core and issuer processing, and the recent acquisitions will now see them compete as industry leaders in the U.S. debit network and merchant processing markets.
"We estimate that the purchase of Worldpay is the 28th largest acquisition in the world in the 2010s. This will be hugely important for the payments industry, and it's something we will be discussing in more detail in our latest edition of Payments Intelligence, to be published shortly."
Callum Godwin - Chief Economist