Mastercard drops Earthport bid for Transfast acquisition
Mastercard has dropped its Earthport bid and instead acquired cross-border account-to-account money transfer network Transfast.
Financial details about the deal were not disclosed
As reported last month, the bidding war over Earthport intensified as Visa wanted to see off arch-rival Mastercard with a £247 million offer.
Mastercard explains: “Prior to this announcement, Mastercard lapsed its offer for Earthport in order to focus on the integration and expansion of Transfast.”
In this new development, Transfast will be used to improve its compliance capabilities and offer foreign exchange tools. Financial details about the deal were not disclosed.
Transfast currently supports the Mastercard Send solution for business-to-business and person-to-person payment services.
Michael Miebach, chief product officer for Mastercard, says: “The addition of Transfast adds to our leading position in meeting business, government and consumer payments needs – whether B2B, P2P or other flows.”
Transfast’s network provider covers over 125 countries across Asia, Europe, Africa, Americas and Australia.
Its proprietary network consists of integrations with 300+ banks and other financial institutions for services to its partners via APIs, SFTP, web and mobile product applications.
Transfast is backed by private equity investment firms GCP Capital Partners and Apis Partners.
The transaction, which is anticipated to close in the second half of 2019, is subject to customary closing conditions.
