GoCardless Aims to Acquire Nuapay, Add Disbursement Capabilities

Bank payment company GoCardless plans to grow its indirect channel offering with an acquisition of Sentenial, which operates under the Nuapay brand.

GoCardless has signed an agreement to acquire the company from EML Payments Limited, in a deal that is subject to regulatory approvals, the companies said in a Friday (March 15) press release.

“Nuapay is an established account-to-account payment provider and open banking specialist with a blue chipcustomer base,” Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless, said in the release. “Its business is perfectly aligned to our growth strategy, and will accelerate our vision to become the world’s bank payment network.”

The planned acquisition will extend GoCardless’ services to new customer segments, including independent software vendors (ISVs) and payment service providers (PSPs), and consolidate its position as a payment provider to its existing customers, according to the release.

Incorporating Nuapay’s capabilities into its bank payment platform will also help GoCardless accelerate its rollout of new disbursement capabilities, enabling the company to pursue new opportunities in payroll, financial services, utilities, insurance, gaming and gambling, the release said.

With the addition of these features, GoCardless will be a full-service bank payment provider that can enable both disbursements and payment collection via direct debit, real-time payments and open banking, per the release.

“How the world pays and gets paid is being transformed, with account-to-account payments and open banking playing the central role in that shift,” Brian Hanrahan, co-founder and CEO of Nuapay, said in the release. “Building on that shared vision, this acquisition will result in a combined organization with deep domestic and international payments and open banking expertise plus the scale to harness these opportunities for our clients and partners.”

PYMNTS Intelligence has found that account-to-account payments have emerged as a convenient alternative to traditional transaction methods like credit and debit cards.

Eighty-four percent of users of this payment method reported being very or extremely satisfied with their most-used account-to-account platform, according to “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Consumer Familiarity Controls Account-to-Account Payment Growth,” a PYMNTS Intelligence and AWS collaboration.

In a partnership announced in August 2023, GoCardless teamed up with Commusoft to offer GoCardless’ Instant Bank Pay as an alternative to card payments for Commusoft’s customers, who include plumbing, fire and security, renewables and electrical professionals.