NMI Acquires Dwolla to Strengthen Pay by Bank Offering

Embedded payments infrastructure company NMI has acquired account-to-account (A2A) payment infrastructure provider Dwolla.

The deal, announced Tuesday (May 19) combines NMI’s background payment acceptance, channel distribution, onboarding and merchant life cycle management with Dwolla’s capabilities in account-to-account infrastructure, real-time payments and open banking.

“This acquisition is a continuation of our strategy to build the most robust, white-label, embedded payments platform for our channel and enterprise partners,”  Steve Pinado, CEO of NMI, said in a news release provided to PYMNTS.

“Dwolla gives us modern, API-first A2A infrastructure that strengthens our ability to help businesses accept, manage and move money across more use cases and more rails. It also gives NMI a stronger foundation to participate in the next generation of money movement, including agentic payments, stablecoin-enabled settlement, remittances and other emerging payment models.”

The release noted that A2A payments are enjoying greater momentum around the world as businesses and consumers seek quicker and more flexible ways to move money. NMI cited research showing that global A2A transaction value will reach $195 trillion by 2030, up from $91.5 trillion last year, fueled in part by the ongoing growth of real-time payment systems.

As this is happening, companies that are embedding payments into their products are facing increasing pressure to support more rails, faster payouts and greater visibility, said Dave Glaser, Dwolla’s chief executive.

“Dwolla was built to help businesses operate bank payments at scale through an API-first infrastructure layer that unifies ACH and real-time rails while standardizing status, exception handling and reporting,” Glaser added.

“By joining NMI, we can bring those capabilities to a broader ecosystem of partners, while giving Dwolla customers access to NMI’s omnichannel payment acceptance capabilities, through a single, flexible, white-label platform.”

NMI will continue to support Dwolla’s existing customers and partners as it integrates Dwolla’s capabilities into its platform, the release added. Around 60 Dwolla employees will join NMI with Glaser becoming the company’s chief operating officer.

PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster spoke with NMI’s Pinado last year about the company’s role as an “enabler” of embedded payments “across a wide spectrum,” letting partners choose the functions they need while NMI handles the “plumbing” of payments infrastructure.

Pinado also discussed artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) growing role in improving both operations and customer experience.

“We will be heavy AI users in every way we can across every function of the business,” he said, adding, “If you’re not taking advantage of it and really, really in a focused way deploying inside your business, it’s a threat.”