Bengaluru: PayU, an online payment service provider and Naspers’ fintech arm, on Friday announced the acquisition of Wibmo, a Silicon Valley startup that works on digital payment security and payment enablement on smartphones. The deal was valued at around $70 million, according to a statement by PayU.
Post acquisition, Cupertino-based Wibmo will continue to operate and serve all its clients as a wholly owned subsidiary of PayU.
Wibmo co-founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Govind Setlur, will become part of PayU’s leadership team, reporting to the PayU India chief executive officer, the company said.
Founded in 1999 by Setlur and Veena Mistry, Wibmo provides digital payment security technology in India and other emerging markets.
It claims to process billions of transactions a year. In India, the company works with banks to implement security protocols such as one-time password authentication and other risk management solutions.
PayU, on the other hand, provides payment gateway services and other digital payment enablement services to both consumers and businesses. It also holds an NBFC (non-banking financial company ) licence in India to offer credit services targeted mostly at MSMEs.
This strategic acquisition will combine PayU’s strong merchant network and Wibmo’s digital transaction security solutions to offer payments solutions to merchants and financial institutions in India and other high growth markets.
The acquisition will also help PayU accelerate its credit business by leveraging big data to power credit on various online and offline merchants in partnership with leading lending players, the company said.
PayU has already crossed the ₹100 crore ($16 million) mark for credit issuance on the existing platforms and aims to clock the next ₹100 crore in the next three months itself, it said late last year.
“Through the acquisition of Wibmo, our endeavour is to positively impact and add value to the entire ecosystem including banks, consumers and merchants…We will partner with leading banks to enable digital banking, merchants will gain with higher conversions rates and increased sales," said Aakash Moondhra, chief financial officer, PayU Global. “PayU has evolved within the complex payments landscape to become India’s biggest online payments processor, serving more than 350,000 merchants. We are excited to embark on this next chapter of Wibmo’s growth with PayU," said Setlur.
This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.
