Banking Technology Magazine March 2023 issue out now
Cover story: FACE OFF – Confrontation can be a good thing.
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Welcome to the March edition of the Banking Technology Magazine!
We are entering the spring season with the continuing shake-up across the industry – the buy now, pay later (BNPL) sector is finally put under the regulatory spotlight; the fintech darling Banking-as-a-Service (BaaS) hits rocky ground; redundancies are rife; funding and valuations ruthlessly cut; and lots of fintechs putting up “for sale” signs.
Following the leadership shake-up at FIS and mass layoff announcements, the US banking and payments tech heavyweight has unveiled a $17.6 billion write-down on its Merchant Solutions business and plans to spin it off over the next 12 months.
The business mainly consists of payments software arm Worldpay that FIS acquired four years ago for around $43 billion. In turn, Worldpay was created through the coming together of paytech titans Vantiv in the US and Worldpay in the UK, in early 2018.
The Worldpay brand will make a comeback, with former Vantiv/Worldpay CEO Charles Drucker taking the reins once more.
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FIS will then be left with the core banking processing systems business, which makes up around 46% of its revenue, and its capital markets division, which makes up about a quarter of revenues.
Meanwhile, FIS rival and a long-standing player in the fintech space, Finastra, is looking to shed its core banking software business. Similar to FIS, it grew over the years via M&A, hoovering up several banking offerings, including the Phoenix core and Malauzai mobile banking solutions in the US; and Essence and its much older siblings, Equation and Midas (plus the now sunsetted Bankmaster), offered to banks worldwide.
Finastra is reportedly hoping to sell its “universal banking” business, which it’s currently carving out, for as much as $7 billion. It will then be left with treasury and capital markets, payments, and lending businesses.
Whatever comes next, one thing for sure: there won’t be a dull moment in 2023 for the world of fintech, and we will continue to bring you the juiciest stories and the hottest coverage.
