5 Major FinTech Acquisitions announced in January 2024

By Gloria Methri

The FinTech sector in 2023 witnessed a slowdown in deal activity, with companies around the world adopting a cautious approach when it comes to mergers and acquisitions (M&A). In the first half of the year, only 128 M&A deals were recorded, compared to 248 and 188 in the first and second halves of 2022.

Despite the contraction, firms remain interested in exploring options and are looking forward to potential deals when market conditions improve. According to the S&P Global Market Intelligence, several FinTech segments are attracting merger and acquisition (M&A) interest, including payments, treasury management software and corporate carve-outs.

The year 2024 began with multiple FinTech acquisitions taking place in January. Let’s look at five such announcements made this month:

• Credit Agricole acquires 7% stake in Worldline

French bank Credit Agricole S.A. has acquired a 7% minority interest in global payment and transactional services company Worldline.

The investment builds upon the strategic partnership between Credit Agricole Group and Worldline S.A., an agreement for which was signed in July 2023. It is intended to strengthen this collaboration to create a major player in the French merchant payment services market.

• DMI Group acquires ZestMoney

DMI Group, a pan-India financial services platform, has acquired ZestMoney. DMI will have the exclusive right to use all Zest brands through this acquisition.

This acquisition will enable DMI to widen its engagement with current and potential customers by adding the ZestMoney checkout financing platform to its product suite. DMI will also bring its customer base, balance-sheet strength and significant risk-management experience to drive growth across Zest’s online and offline merchant network.

• GFT Technologies acquires Sophos Solutions

GFT Technologies has agreed to acquire 100% of shares in Colombia-based core banking expert Sophos Solutions from Advent International. With Sophos, GFT says it advances to one of the top IT services providers across Latin America and increases its global delivery capability.

The transaction is expected to be completed in early February 2024. In 2022, Sophos generated revenues of around 257 billion Colombian pesos (around €60 million) and GFT reported over €730 million worldwide.

• Objectway acquires Nest Wealth

Objectway, a software and services provider to banks and asset and wealth managers, has acquired Nest Wealth, a Canadian provider of digital wealth solutions.

Objectway has built partnerships with banks, and wealth and asset management firms to empower and scale their business through software and services, enabling financial institutions of all sizes and geographies to seamlessly embark on their digital transformation journey.

• Talus Pay acquires Jobox and Clarus

Talus Pay, a payment processing solutions provider, has acquired two companies, Jobox.ai, a FinTech company servicing the home services industry, and Clarus Merchant Services, a provider of integrated B2B payment solutions.

In combination with Jobox and Clarus, Talus Pay now processes more than $9 billion in annual payments volume for over 22,000 merchant customers across the United States. Pottebaum joins Talus Pay’s leadership team as general manager of its Clarus portfolio. Bloch has been named Talus Pay’s chief strategy officer and Kaushik Pendurthi, also from Jobox, has been named chief technology officer.