Nuvei Finalizes $1.3B Paya Purchase

Canadian FinTech Nuvei’s $1.3 billion acquisition of payment platform Paya is complete.

The all-cash deal, first announced in January, gives Nuvei ownership of a payment and frictionless commerce business that processed $50 billion in payment volume last year, the company said in a Wednesday (Feb. 22) news release.

“Nuvei and Paya are highly complementary with respect to geographies, capabilities to offer to customers and partners, and the end-markets and verticals that each currently serve,” the news release said.

The company notes that much of Paya’s business is in “high growth” verticals like healthcare, nonprofit, government, utilities and other business-to-business (B2B) end markets.

“This is an important milestone for Nuvei as we continue to build a preeminent payment technology provider with strong positions in global eCommerce, Integrated Payments and B2B,” Nuvei CEO Philip Fayer said in the release.

As PYMNTS wrote when the purchase was first announced, the deal was touted as the first big FinTech deal of 2023, following a 2022 trend that saw larger companies like Global Payments and Fiserv acquiring smaller competitors to scale and diversify their operations.

Speaking to PYMNTS’ Karen Webster earlier this month, Fayer said the purchase will help his company speed its transformation and growth into new verticals.

Paya’s software integrations with over more than ISV platforms and end-to-end commerce solutions “position Nuvei to capitalize on the domestic and global software-led market opportunity,” Fayer said.

He also noted that Nuvei operates in multiple corners of the globe, with different regions having different needs.

However, there are some commonalities: the company’s clients need to simplify their technical stacks in order to provide local payment acceptance, and to manage shifting regulatory frameworks overseeing things like risk management, account verification and authentication. In addition, these companies also need someone to manage payroll and processing costs.

With all this in mind, Fayer told PYMNTS, the joint proposition of Nuvei and Paya offers its clients a standardized set of processes that let those companies scale and boost conversions.

PYMNTS has collaborated with Nuvei on research, including the November study “How the World Does Digital: The Impact of Payments on Digital Transformation.”

That study found digital wallets to be the most popular alternate purchasing method for shoppers in the U.S.

Nearly 60% percent of consumers who tried a new payment option in the past year used a digital wallet, while close to two-thirds of shoppers incorporated digital wallets as a regular form of payment in the past year. Ease of use was the most popular reason consumers mentioned for their choice.