Capital Investments Help Payment Infrastructure Firms GPS and Nuvei Make Major Moves Across EMEA Region

As part of its efforts to accelerate technology development and global growth, payments issuer processor Global Processing Services (GPS) recently announced it has raised over $300 million, after securing a strategic investment from its long-term partner, Visa, last October.

Global private equity firm Advent International and U.S. hedge fund Viking Global Investors were behind the capital injection and will co-control the company moving forward.

According to the release, the new capital injection will help accelerate technology investments in product innovation as well as boost the company’s expansion in 48 countries across Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

GPS Chief Executive Officer Joanne Dewar said the payment technology firm has been working to simplify access to the global rails of the new digital payments era amid a global FinTech explosion.

“This investment will allow us to turbo charge our geographic footprint and product expansion plans as we drive the payments ecosystem in the key verticals of today and tomorrow, including digital banking, Buy Now Pay Later, B2B virtual cards, financial empowerment, and much more,” she said.

Founded in 2007, the London-headquartered firm is the payments processing partner for several neobanks including Revolut, Curve, Starling Bank and Zilch.

GPS has issued 190 million physical and virtual cards, while integrating with 95 issuer partners and processing over 1.3 billion transactions.

Earlier this month, the global payments processor set up a regional hub in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to boost its offerings across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where the value of the FinTech industry is predicted to reach a record $3.45 billion by 2026, helped by the high demand for digital services triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Nuvei Secures the European Bag

As GPS pursues its growth across MENA, top competitor Nuvei is aggressively expanding across Europe, partnering and investing in key firms across the region.

The Montreal-based company is Canada’s largest private and non-bank payment processor, offering its merchant clients one single API for all card and payment options worldwide.

In September 2020, the company closed a CAD $833 million (about $669 million) initial public offering, achieving the largest technology IPO ever on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

It has made several moves in Europe since then, starting with the acquisition of Netherlands-based one-stop shop payment solution, Smart2Pay, a few months after its TSX listing.

Related: Limonetik, Nuvei Team on EU Vendor Payment Capabilities

In September of this year, French payment platform Limonetik selected the Canada-based firm to enhance payment capabilities for its marketplace clients in the EU and the U.K., and that same month, Nuvei made its first foray into the blockchain technology space with the purchase of Simplex, an EU-licensed financial institution and cryptocurrency payment solution provider which processes crypto-to-credit card payments.

See also: Limonetik Sees Huge Post-Acquisition Payments Growth In Africa And Asia

Earlier this month, Dutch state-owned company Holland Casino selected Nuvei, to power the launch of the country’s first online casino, providing “custom solutions for player acquisition, verification, and payment provided through one integration,” according to a release.

The deal is a huge win for Nuvei, given that the Dutch state-owned company, which operates 14 casino establishments across the Netherlands, has the legal monopoly on gambling in the European country.

Related news: Nuvei Offers 1.5M Voting Shares in US IPO

Also this month, PYMNTS reported that the global payments technology platform is selling 1.5 million subordinate voting shares in the company in the U.S. and Canada as its IPO in the U.S. Once the U.S. offering is completed, Nuvei will delist its NVEI.U US dollar listing on the TSX and instead become traded on TSX in Canadian dollars under the symbol NVEI.