JPMorgan Buys $800M Stake in Viva Wallet

J.P. Morgan Payments will acquire a 48.5% stake in Greek payments firm Viva Wallet.

The $800 million deal is expected to be announced early next week, Reuters reported Saturday (Dec. 17), citing unnamed sources.

PYMNTS has reached out to both companies for comment.

News that the banking giant was interested in the cloud-based neobank first broke nearly a year ago, with the reported figures slightly less than the more recent estimates: $792 million for 47% of Viva.

Viva Wallet offers card acceptance through its point-of-sale (POS) application, add-on Google Play devices, and payment systems through online stores in 24 countries across Europe.

As PYMNTS noted recently, POS providers have been racing to provide more services and features to stand out as their industry becomes increasingly competitive.

“Many of the offerings that were once an advantage — integrating across ordering channels, kitchen display system (KDS) compatibility, digital wallet acceptance and so on — have become table stakes, such that providers are now looking to offer increasingly specific solutions,” we wrote in October.

For example, restaurant technology company GoTab announced in August the debut of GoTab for Multi-Operator Locations, powering cross-venue payments across merchants at locations like food halls or sporting events’ concession areas.

GoTab CEO and founder Tim McLaughlin said in an interview with PYMNTS that operators have had trouble believing that the system could be digitized in this way.

“Nobody else does it,” McLaughlin said. “One thing that we’ve learned as we’ve sold our first couple of customers on it, is that we had a hard time conveying to them that, ‘No, the system does it all automatically. You don’t have to hire an accountant.’ The hard part is just getting people to realize it can be automatic.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS spoke last week with Josh Comer, head of global liquidity solutions for commercial banking at J.P. Morgan, who said that while the pandemic and global geopolitical risks ushered in an era of unpredictability for corporate treasurers and CFOs, wrestling with working capital and liquidity is always a priority.

“It’s been a merry-go-round and a roller coaster the last few years,” Comer told PYMNTS’ Karen Webster. “I don’t know how anyone could have been fully prepared for the myriad of scenarios that played out.”

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