Paysafe acquires SafetyPay to strengthen its strategic foothold in Latin America
Paysafe announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire SafetyPay for $441 million in an all-cash transaction. SafetyPay is a payments platform that enables eCommerce transactions via an unrivalled choice of open banking and eCash solutions, operating primarily in Latin America.
For Paysafe, this latest deal strengthens its strategic foothold in Latin America, building on its recently announced acquisition agreement with Peruvian payments platform, PagoEfectivo. Together the two acquisitions set Paysafe up to be the leading open banking and eCash solutions provider in Latin America, one of the world’s fastest-growing online markets.
Paysafe’s core purpose is to enable businesses and consumers to connect and transact seamlessly through industry-leading capabilities in payment processing, digital wallets, eCash and online banking solutions. It offers over 70 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world.
SafetyPay was founded in 2007 as an eCommerce payments platform with the mission to enable millions of consumers to use alternative payment methods (APMs), most notably bank transfer and eCash solutions, to make online purchases. It now has a presence in 11 Latin American countries (with additional coverage in Europe), and operates via an unparalleled network of banks, with over 90 per cent bank coverage, and over 180,000 cash collection points. It serves nearly 300 merchants primarily in the travel, entertainment, and digital goods industries.
Upon completion of the transaction, Paysafe will have scale and a leading presence in the fast-growing Latin American eCommerce market, where merchants and consumers alike are showing an increasing appetite to use open banking and eCash solutions to transact online.
Further, with SafetyPay having established relationships with more banks in Latin America than any other payments provider, Paysafe will be uniquely positioned to capture share of the nascent open banking market by integrating further Paysafe services and solutions into the region’s payments ecosystem including its digital wallet and gateway capabilities.
On completion of the deal, the SafetyPay team will transition into Paysafe’s expanding eCash and online banking solutions’ team which is headed up by Paysafe eCash CEO, Udo Mueller. At that time, SafetyPay’s CEO, Gustavo Ruiz Moya, will become CEO, eCash for Latin America and Global Head of Open Banking, reporting into Mueller. The enlarged Paysafe eCash business will be able to offer eCash and open banking solutions in over 60 countries with over one million distribution points.
“We are very excited to welcome SafetyPay into the Paysafe family. The team has successfully built a market-leading payment platform that has become the de facto open banking solution for Latin America. We look forward to partnering with Gustavo and the team to continue to build eCash and online banking solutions across LATAM and beyond.
“Furthermore, by combining the capabilities and open banking network of both SafetyPay and PagoEfectivo with our existing solutions in processing, digital wallets and eCash, along with our deep expertise in specialized verticals such as iGaming, travel and digital goods, we can become the true market leader in the region and provide merchants with unique and powerful combinations to grow their business,” commented Philip McHugh, CEO of Paysafe.
“We are really pleased to see SafetyPay and PagoEfectivo become part of Paysafe and expand our payment solutions across card payment processing, digital wallets, eCash and online banking payments with a strong foothold in high growth Latin American markets.
“We see exciting synergies in key industry verticals like iGaming where we want to win. From the start, we have had a plan to grow in areas where we can achieve scale through operational efficiency. It is great to see the team execute and create more opportunities for growth,” commented Bill Foley, Chairman of Paysafe’s Board of Directors.
The SafetyPay transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter, 2021. Paysafe’s banks have provided financing commitments and Paysafe intends to refinance these bridge facilities with new debt contemporaneously with the completion of the acquisition.
RBC Capital Markets, LLC served as exclusive financial advisor and Greenberg Traurig, LLP served as legal advisor to Paysafe. PJT Partners served as exclusive financial advisor and Quarles & Brady served as legal advisor to SafetyPay.