As the Federal Reserve embarks upon its journey to becoming a real-time payments provider with its planned FedNow service, Mastercard Inc. on Tuesday announced the biggest acquisition in its history, one the network says will strengthen its real-time, bill-payment, and related services.
Mastercard said it has a deal to buy the account-to-account businesses of Nets Group, a Denmark-based processor that mostly operates in the Nordic and Baltic countries, for €2.85 billion ($3.19 billion). The businesses to be acquired include the clearing and instant-payment services and e-billing offerings in Nets’ Corporate Services unit.
“The acquisition for Mastercard does boost non-card area focuses,” Jared Drieling, senior director of business intelligence at The Strawhecker Group, an Omaha, Neb.-based merchant-acquiring consultancy, says in an e-mail to Digital Transactions News.