2021 is emerging as a record year for fintech exits. Since the beginning of the year, there has been EUR 22.6 billion worth of exits in Europe, an all-time high that’s double the previous record of EUR 11.36 billion in 2018, according to a Sifted report, citing PitchBook data.

Out of the EUR 22.6 billion, EUR 18.5 billion worth of European fintech exits involved public listings and mergers with special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), while the remaining EUR 4.1 billion went towards acquisition deals.

Venture-capital exits for European fintechs, by type (EUR billion), Graph by Sifted.eu

So far this year, much of the fintech consolidation has happened in the business-to-business (B2B) segment as incumbents accelerate their modernization efforts in response to the pandemic. High-profile acquisitions included open banking platform Tink, banking-as-a-service (BaaS) provider Contis and Portuguese telco Nowo.

Consolidation in the payments market also continued this year with a flurry of sizeable acquisition deals taking place such as real estate payments specialist Zego, paytech firm First American Payment System, and Indian digital payments provider BillDesk.

To get a sense of the current fintech exits landscape, we’ve compiled a list of the largest acquisition deals that have been announced so far this year. For this list, we’ve excluded SPAC merger deals.

Afterpay – US$29 billion

Payments company Square reached a deal in August to acquire Australian buy now, pay later (BNPL) provider Afterpay in a US$29 billion all-stock transaction.

Melbourne-based Afterpay allows retailers to offer customers the option of paying for products in four installments without interest if the payments are made on time. The acquisition will allow Square to integrate Afterpay into its existing Seller and Cash App business units and enable merchants to offer BNPL options at checkout.

BillDesk – US$4.7 billion

Dutch tech giant Prosus announced in August an agreement between its payments and fintech business PayU and the shareholders of the Indian digital payments provider BillDesk to acquire BillDesk for US$4.7 billion.

Prosus plans to combine BillDesk with PayU to turn it into one of the leading online payments providers globally with some US$147 billion in payment volume annually. The acquisition will also provide PayU wuth access to BillDesk’s large merchant base as the former looks to cross-sell products, including business lending.

Founded in 2000, BillDesk is one of the leading payments businesses in India.

Calypso Technology – US$3.75 billion

Software investment firm Thoma Bravo announced in March the acquisition of Calypso Technology, a provider of cloud-enabled, of cross-asset front-to-back solutions and managed services for financial markets.

Founded in 1997 and headquartered in San Francisco, Calypso Technology leverages innovative cloud micro-services and blockchain distributed ledger technology (DLT) based solutions to reduce trading costs and improve time to value. The award-winning software is used by 35,000 users in 60+ countries.

In July, Calypso Technology was merged with another Thoma Bravo portfolio company AxiomSL, a provider of regulatory reporting and risk management solutions for financial institutions.

Itiviti – US$2.5 billion

Fintech firm Broadridge Financial Solutions announced in March the acquisition of trading and connectivity technology provider Itiviti for US$2.5 billion.

Itiviti is a capital markets technology service provider offering solutions that financial institutions use to consolidate their trading infrastructure. With offices in 16 countries, Itiviti serves 24 of the top 25 global investment banks and over 2,000 leading brokers, trading firms and asset managers across 50 countries.

The acquisition will allow Broadridge Financial Solutions to extend its capabilities into the front office and deepening its multi-asset class solutions, significantly strengthening its Capital Markets franchise, Tim Gokey, Broadridge’s CEO said.

Paidy – US$2.7 billion

Japanese buy now, pay later (BNPL) firm Paidy was acquired by PayPal for approximately US$2.7 billion (¥300 billion) and the transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Paidy will continue to operate its existing business, maintain its brand and support a wide variety of consumer wallets and marketplaces.

With this move, PayPal expands its capabilities in the Japanese domestic payments market.

Divvy – US$2.5 billion

Bill.com, a provider of software to automate complex back-office financial operations, announced in May the acquisition of Divvy, a US-based fintech unicorn. The US$2.5 billion acquisition deal will enable Bill.com to expand into spend management technology.

Divvy is a leader in spend management that modernizes finance for business by combining expense management software and smart corporate cards into a single platform.

Bill.com’s expanded solution will enable businesses to automatically manage accounts payable, accounts receivable, and corporate card spend all in one place.

NIC – US$2.33 billion

Tyler Technologies, a provider of integrated software and technology services to the public sector, announced in February the acquisition of NIC, a digital government solutions and payments company, in a US$2.3 billion all-cash transaction.

The transaction will strengthen Tyler Technologies’ ability to provide end-to-end solutions to local, state, and federal governments. Together, the combined company is expected to significantly expand its business with federal agencies.

In addition, NIC’s extensive expertise and scale in the government payments arena will accelerate Tyler’s strategic payments initiatives.

Tink – US$2.1 billion

Payment network Visa announced in June the acquisition of Tink, a European open banking platform. Visa will pay total financial consideration of EUR 1.8 billion (US$2.1 billion), inclusive of cash and retention incentives, to acquire Tink.

Tink enables financial institutions, fintechs and merchants to build tailored financial management tools, products and services for European consumers and businesses based on their financial data. Tink is integrated with more than 3,400 banks and financial institutions, reaching millions of bank customers  across Europe.

The combination of Visa’s infrastructure with Tink’s APIs is expected to help accelerate the adoption of open banking in Europe.

Cardtronics – US$1.7 billion

NCR, a global enterprise corporation technology provider for the financial, retail and hospitality industries, announced in January the acquisition of Cardtronics, one of the world’s largest non-bank ATM operators and service providers with 285,000 ATMs in 10 countries.

The deal would value Cardtronics at US$39 a share, or around US$1.7 billion, people familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal. It aims to help NCR accelerate its “NCR-as-a-service strategy” and expand opportunities in payments.

The combined company is expected to achieve US$100-US$120 million in run rate operating cost synergies by the end of 2022.

Capco – US$1.45 billion

Wipro, an Indian information technology, consulting and business process services firm, announced in March the acquisition of London-based Capco, a management and technology consultancy providing digital, consulting and technology services to financial institutions.

The US$1.45 billion acquisition deal will allow Wipro to boost its offerings for the financial services industry and turn it into one of the largest end-to-end global consulting, technology and transformation service providers to the banking and finance industry.

Capco, which specializes in driving digital transformation in the financial services industry, has a growing client portfolio comprising of over 100 global organizations.

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