Prosus today announced PayU has reached an agreement with Rapyd, a Fintech-as-a-Service provider, that Rapyd will acquire PayU’s Global Payments Organisation (GPO) for a total cash consideration of $610 million or R10.9 billion.
The transaction will enable PayU to focus on the large payments and fintech opportunity in India, where it is the leading payments provider, serving more than 450,000 merchants and more than 2m credit customers.
“As we focus our investment on the Indian market, this is an exciting time for Prosus’s Payments & Fintech segment. PayU’s payments business is one of the largest, fastest growing and most profitable businesses in India among non-banking players, delivering 42% year on year growth in the last year alone,” Laurent le Moal, PayU Chief Executive Officer said.
“Overall, India’s digital financial services opportunity continues to be large and underpenetrated, offering healthy growth for the PayU India business. In areas like lending and digital credit products, where PayU India already supports 2m customers and over 450,000 merchants, we see strong growth potential for the future.”
The transaction is subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions.
The deal follows recent strong performance in Prosus’s Payments and Fintech segment, which produced
consolidated revenue growth of 52% to US$903m in FY23.
PayU’s GPO business provides advanced ecommerce payment solutions for global merchants in over
30 countries across Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe and Africa.
The business contributes around 30% of PayU’s overall revenues. In FY23, total payment volumes for GPO grew 12% year-onyear to US$34bn. This is around 3x growth in 5 years.
“PayU’s GPO business has grown considerably in recent years, with payment volumes growing more than 300% in the past five years alone. The business occupies a strong position in the global fintech space as a result of the investments made in building an exceptional local payments business, with global scale,” Bob van Dijk, Prosus and Naspers Chief Executive Officer said.
“We are now fully focused on the huge fintech opportunity in India, where PayU is the leading payments service provider and is rapidly expanding its credit offering. Innovation and progressive regulation are driving rapid change within the digital payments industry in India, and we see many new opportunities to further expand our business there. As one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, we strongly believe in digital India and are excited about the next phase of growth for PayU in India.”
Rapyd is a digital payment processing and infrastructure company that delivers end-to-end products covering the entire payment spectrum from ecommerce payments acceptance to complex financial solutions including payouts, FX, white label wallets, and card issuing.
This transaction will help Rapyd to significantly scale and market its presence in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, while also gaining access to relevant underlying licenses and payment processing infrastructure.
