Prosus strikes $4.7-billion deal to buy BillDesk

Bob van Dijk, radical CEO astatine Prosus, said the regulatory clearances for the woody should beryllium successful spot by February 2022. (Representative image)

Prosus, a planetary user net radical and 1 of the largest exertion investors successful the world, is acquiring section integer payments supplier BillDesk successful a $4.7-billion deal, 1 of the largest successful the integer payments space.

Through this acquisition, Prosus plans to standard up it payments and fintech concern PayU, which operates successful much than 20 markets globally, arsenic 1 of the starring online outgo providers globally by full outgo measurement (TPV), aggregating $147 billion.

The deal, taxable to the support of the Competition Commission of India (CCI), volition bring Prosus’s cumulative concern successful Indian tech to implicit $10 billion, the institution said successful a connection connected Tuesday.

The improvement comes amid accelerated adoption of fintech services by Indian consumers. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) expects much than 200 cardinal caller users to follow integer payments implicit the adjacent 3 years with the mean yearly transactions per capita rising tenfold from 22 to 220. In fact, India and China accounted for the highest fintech adoption complaint successful the world’s emerging markets, according to a associated study published by EY and IVCA earlier this year. India stood astatine an 87% adoption complaint compared with the 64% planetary mean arsenic of March 2020.

Founded successful 2000, BillDesk’s TPV stood astatine implicit $90 cardinal successful FY21, the firm’s website showed. PayU India and BillDesk that tally complementary businesses wrong India’s integer outgo manufacture jointly expect to grip 4 cardinal transactions annually, 4 times that of PayU’s existent level successful the country.

“The ecosystem we are gathering done the acquisition of BillDesk provides the standard and maturation opportunities to presumption PayU astatine the forefront of integer payments successful India. The operation volition let america to summation scale, physique marketplace enactment crossed each outgo verticals and found a beardown beingness successful the outgo worth concatenation serving merchants crossed each segments,” said Anirban Mukherjee, CEO astatine PayU India.

The woody marks PayU’s 4th fintech acquisition successful India successful little than 5 years, aft CitrusPay, Paysense and Wibmo. “Together, PayU India and BillDesk volition beryllium capable to conscionable the changing payments needs of integer consumers, merchants and authorities enterprises successful India and connection state-of-the-art exertion to adjacent much of the excluded sections of society,” the companies said.

Bob van Dijk, radical CEO astatine Prosus, said the regulatory clearances for the woody should beryllium successful spot by February 2022.

The Indian fintech marketplace is expected to turn astatine a CAGR of 22.7% during 2020-25, analysts said. Local fintech firms attracted immoderate $2 cardinal successful backing successful the archetypal fractional of the calendar twelvemonth alone, astir nearing the full investments the abstraction garnered successful the full of 2020, analysts astatine KPMG said successful a caller study.

One of the largest exertion investors successful the world, Prosus has backed a slew of Indian net firms, including Swiggy, Byju’s, Meesho and Urban Company.