Visa buys UK payments fintech startup CurrencyCloud for nearly $1 billion

Just less than a month after Visa buys Swedish fintech startup Tink for $2.1 billion, the payment giant makes another big bet on fintech, buying UK payments startup Currencycloud.

Visa announced Thursday that it has agreed to buy British payments startup Currencycloud in a deal that values the fintech startup at £700 million ($962 million), making it Visa’s second major fintech acquisition of 2021.

“Consumers and businesses increasingly expect transparency, speed and simplicity when making or receiving international payments,” said Colleen Ostrowski, Visa’s global treasurer.

“With our acquisition of Currencycloud, we can support our clients and partners to further reduce the pain points of cross-border payments and develop great user experiences for their customers,” she added.

As we reported last month, Visa acquired Swedish financial tech startup Tink for $2.1 billion (1.8 billion euros) to help bolster the payment giant’s digital ambitions. The announcement came after Visa abandoned the bid to buy Plaid, an American rival to Tink. Since then, Plaid has opted to go it alone as a private company and was last privately valued at  $13.4 billion.

Before today’s announcement, Visa was one of the major investors in CurrencyCloud. The payments giant led an $80 million investment in the company at the beginning of 2020. CurrencyCloud’s technology is used by fintech apps Monzo and Revolut.

“Re-imagining how money flows around the global economy just got more exciting as we join Visa,” said Mike Laven, Currencycloud’s CEO. “The combination of Currencycloud’s fintech expertise and Visa’s network will enable us to deliver greater customer value to the businesses moving money across borders.”

Founded in 2007 by CEO Nigel Verdon, Currencycloud powers cross-border payments for a number of popular finance apps. Currencycloud is a global payments platform built on smart technology that takes the complexity out of moving money.

Developers use Currencycloud API building blocks to build customized payment solutions. Whether you want to embed their payments infrastructure into your products or services or build on top of it, they will fit into your business in a way that works for you.