M&A Spotlight – Visa acquires Tink for $2.1 bn

M&A of the Week

m&a-spotlight-–-visa-acquires-tink-for-$2.1-bn

Visa, the international payment processing giant, is acquiring Tink, a Swedish open banking platform for US$2.1 billion. According to Visa CEO & Chair AI Kelly, this alliance will help Visa deliver increased value to European consumers and businesses with tools to make their financial lives more simple, reliable, and secure.

Tink is an open banking platform company situated in Stockholm, Sweden. It was founded by Fredrik Hedberg and Daniel Kjellén in 2012.  Its open banking platform and APIs enable banks, FinTech companies, and merchants to develop custom financial tools and products. Tink is associated with over 3400 banks and institutions and has a reach of 250mn customers across Europe. Tink processes more than 10bn transactions per year and handles over 1 bn API calls per month with 99.9%+ uptime.

Early this year, Visa was in talks of acquiring Plaid, a U.S.-based FinTech at a valuation of US$5.3 bn. However, the deal was called off due to regulatory reasons. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a suit to block the deal stating that the combination of Visa and Plaid would eliminate the growing competition which could help build more innovative online debit services for merchants and consumers and thereby result in substantial savings.

Visa acquires Tink for $2.1bn

What To Expect from the Visa & Tink Merger?

Visa is the oldest, and one of the most successful payments processer with a wide network. While Tink has already partnered with over 3400 banks and FinTechs in a short span of time.

Tink with Visa’s infrastructure, funding, and state-of-the-art fraud prevention technology could further scale their business.

In the words of Tink CEO and co-founder Daniel Kjellén – “Joining Visa, we will be able to move faster and reach further than ever before. Visa is the perfect partner for the next stage of Tink’s journey. We are incredibly excited about what this will bring to our employees, customers, and for the future of financial services.”

The Visa and Tink merger could also accelerate open banking’s development in Europe.

Having said that, please note that this deal is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions as per the company press release.

As experts in fintech consulting and payments consulting, Penser tracks new trends in the industry. We offer due diligence services for investors and vendors as well as digital transformation and strategic planning services. Contact us to know more about how we can help your business.