Payments giant Visa Inc to acquire Pismo, a Brazilian Fintech platform for $1 Billion in cash to enhance its reach in Latin America, Asia Pacific and Europe on Wednesday.
The Pismo transaction is the largest financial exit in Latin America since Nubank went public in late 2021, as well as the largest announced startup departure this year. Visa, the world’s largest payments processor, is making its first major acquisition since 2021, when it paid $2.2 billion for European open banking platform Tink as well as British cross-border payments service Currencycloud.
Pismo’s cloud-based infrastructure for financial institutions, based in Sao Paulo, hosts more than 70 million accounts and transacts more than $200 billion per year, enabling clients to issue Visa and Mastercard (MA.N) cards. Earlier this year, it was rumoured that Mastercard was also interested in acquiring the banking infrastructure business. It did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Pismo’s present management team will be retained as part of the acquisition, which is anticipated to finalise by the end of the year, according to Visa. Entrepreneurs Ricardo Josua, Daniela Binatti, Juliana Binatti, and Marcelo Parise formed the seven-year-old enterprise. It operates in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, India, and Latin America.
Pismo has raised more than $110 million in funding from investors such as Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, Amazon.com Inc, venture capital firm Accel, and Headline, which first invested in the seed round and now owns almost 30% of the company.
