Payments Dive
The payments industry consulting firm Strawhecker Group came in with different figures, tabulating 127 transactions worth $76.6 billion, according to a spokesperson for that firm. That’s a record number of deals by its tally, inching past the 125 deal count last year, though more than the $169.4 billion value record set in 2019.
Either way, the industry had a bonanza year in 2021. Both Dealogic and Strawhecker numbers received their biggest boost from digital payment tool company Square’s August announcement that it would pay $29 billion to acquire the Australian buy now-pay later firm Afterpay.
The acquisition activity spooled up as young fintechs sucked up billions of dollars in venture capital, fueling their ambitions to grow and compete aggressively with incumbents. Digital new entrants were already roiling the industry before the COVID-19 pandemic showed up in 2020, but that deadly contagion further spurred an e-commerce evolution that contributed to the industry’s expansion.
Payments companies saved up money in 2020 and plowed it into acquisitions last year, said Zach Spellman, who tracks deals for Strawhecker. “There’s just a lot of build-up cash on hand that has led to many of these acquisitions,” Spellman said in a recent interview.