BBVA buys Mexican payments start-up Openpay
BBVA Bancomer, a fully owned subsidiary of BBVA, has acquired Mexico-based payments start-up Openpay to tap into its network of more than 15,000 payment reception points across the country.
Openpay offers a platform for physical and electronic payments for businesses via its real-time Paynet network. According to BBVA, the start-up manages more than one million transactions a month and its platform is used by more than 1,000 businesses in Mexico, such as start-ups, SMEs and corporate clients. This is BBVA’s first acquisition of a Latin American start-up dedicated to electronic commerce.
Carlos López-Moctezuma, head of new digital business at BBVA Bancomer, says the deal will “strengthen the functionalities of a payment platform in the bank, integrate new anti-fraud models” and “market the Openpay product among the institution’s corporate customers”.
BBVA says the acquisition will “not bring any operating changes or changes in fees for existing Openpay customers”. Openpay was founded in 2013 and was one of the Latin American finalists in the 2015 edition of the BBVA Open Talent contest.
Propel by an Atom
Acquisitions and investments are a “key role” in BBVA’s digital strategy.
In March 2016, it bought the financial start-up Holvi. In 2015, the bank purchased a 29.5% strategic stake in Atom, a UK mobile-only bank.
Last year, BBVA completed the takeover of Spring Studio, a US user experience design company. In 2014, BBVA acquired Madiva Soluciones, a big data and cloud computing services start-up; and US tech firm Simple.
However, US-based BBVA Compass recently unveiled a “goodwill impairment” charge of $60 million in its latest financial results, attributed to its direct banking service subsidiary, Simple. BBVA took similar charges related to Simple in 2015 ($17 million) and in 2014 ($12.5 million).
BBVA is also an investor in venture capital firm Propel, which manages BBVA’s interests in start-ups.
