Wirecard recently inked a deal to purchase the customer portfolio of Citi’s merchant acquiring business in 11 markets in Asia Pacific (APAC).
The purchase includes the entire customers for merchant acquiring services in Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, India, Australia and New Zealand.
The portfolio comprises a long-standing and reputable client base of more than 20,000 merchants, e.g. in airlines/ travel, financial services, luxury goods, retail as well as technology and telecommunications.
The sale of the Merchant Acquiring businesses in Asia is consistent with Citi’s global strategy, whereby Asia is the last remaining region in Citi with Merchant Acquiring businesses.
Historically APAC, especially the emerging markets, was dominated by cash usage. The latest intentions to push electronic payments, the overall dynamics in e-commerce and the ongoing penetration of mobile devices, are supporting the ambitious objectives to boost card-based and alternative payment instruments against cash payments.
According to Statista, digital transaction volumes, excluding business-to-business and peer-to-peer payments, are expected to almost double from 2017 to 2021 in countries such as India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand.
Wirecard expects, due to its strong imminent technology and innovation leadership, to extend the company’s value chain even further. On the one hand, to foster its core services in technology-led acquiring and payment processing. On the other hand by establishing additional latest omni-channel front-end solutions, based on a global payment gateway, mobile POS, mobile and online payment solutions as well as database value added services.
Closing will occur in stages by June 2018. The projected EBITDA-contribution of the acquired portfolio in its first year of being fully consolidated (fiscal year 2019) in Wirecard group is more than EUR 20 million. Further financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
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