Visa to acquire payments and banking platform Pismo for $1bn
Payments giant Visa has agreed to acquire Brazilian issuer processor and core banking platform Pismo for $1 billion in cash.
Visa to acquire Pismo for $1 billion
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of this year, with Pismo retaining its current management team.
In March, it was reported that a number of firms, including Visa and Mastercard, were competing to acquire the Brazilian fintech.
With the acquisition, Visa says it will be able to provide core banking and issuer processing capabilities across debit, prepaid, credit and commercial cards for customers via cloud-native APIs. Pismo’s platform will also enable Visa to provide support and connectivity for emerging payment rails (such as Pix in Brazil) for financial institutions.
“Through the acquisition of Pismo, Visa can better serve our financial institution and fintech clients with more differentiated core banking and issuer solutions they can offer their customers,” says Jack Forestell, chief product and strategy officer at Visa.
Ricardo Josua, co-founder and CEO of Pismo, says Visa’s “unrivalled” support will allow the firm to expand its footprint globally.
Founded in 2016 and based in São Paulo, Pismo offers a cloud-native platform for payment and banking services, including digital banking, core banking, cloud computing, card-issuing and digital wallets. It has operations in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Europe.
In October 2021, the company raised $108 million in a Series B funding round from Amazon, SoftBank and Accel to fuel its expansion across Asia.
