Prosus to sell part of PayU to Rapyd for $610 mn, retain India business

Prosus-backed PayU to focus on the large payments and fintech in India

Prosus-backed PayU said on Tuesday it is selling part of its financial technology business to Israel’s Rapyd for $610 million. The deal will allow Rapyd, a fintech-as-a-service provider, to acquire PayU’s Global Payments Organisation (GPO).

The deal will exclude PayU’s biggest payments market in India, as well as its units in Turkey and Indonesia. The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and closing conditions, Prosus said.

PayU’s GPO business contributes around 30 per cent of its overall revenues. In FY23, total payment volumes for GPO tripled in 5 years. It grew 12 per cent year-on year to $34 billion.

“PayU’s payments business is one of the largest, fastest growing and most profitable businesses in India among non-banking players, delivering 42 per cent YoY growth in the last year alone. Overall, India's digital financial services opportunity continues to be large and underpenetrated, offering healthy growth for the PayU India business,” said Laurent le Moal, PayU’s chief executive officer (CEO).

The PayU deal will enable Rapyd to scale its presence in Central and Eastern Europe and Latin America, while also gaining access to relevant underlying licences and payment processing infrastructure. It is a digital payments processing and infrastructure company that offers services such as e-commerce payments acceptance to financial solutions which includes payouts, FX, white label wallets, and card issuing.

PayU said it will focus on the large payments and fintech in India. The company has served over 450,000 merchants and over 2 million credit customers.

“PayU’s GPO business has grown considerably in recent years, with payment volumes growing more than 300 per cent in the past five years alone. The business occupies a strong position in the global fintech space as a result of the investments made in building an exceptional local payments business, with global scale,” said Bob van Dijk, Prosus and Naspers CEO.

PayU processes 10 million payments everyday as a payments service provider. Moreover, the company said it specialises in consumer and small business solutions that improve access to credit and banking services in markets that are underserved by traditional financial services providers.

Prosus’ payments and fintech segment witnessed consolidated revenue growth of 52 per cent to $903 million in FY23.