Global Payments Looks to Sell Netspend

For the second time in as many years, payments processor Global Payments is seeking a buyer for Netspend, its prepaid debit card unit.

As Barron’s reported Friday (Feb. 11), the company is conducting a strategic review of Netspend’s consumer business but plans to keep its business-to-business assets.

The Atlanta company revealed this info Thursday when announcing its fourth-quarter and yearly results. CEO Jeff Sloan said Global Payments want to refine its portfolio and put more emphasis on core customers like merchants, financial institutions, software partners and technology leaders.

“As part of that initiative, we have commenced a strategic review of our Netspend consumer business to sharpen our focus on our B2B assets,” Sloan said. The consumer business has a favorable profile, but its customer base doesn’t overlap much with Global Payments’ traditional clients, he said.

Founded in 1999, Netspend offers financial services that include reloadable prepaid debit and payroll cards, and demand deposit accounts. Its chief competitors are Green Dot (GDOT), InComm Payments and Fiserv (FISV), Global Payments said in its 2020 annual report.

Global Payments tried to sell Netspend in 2020, with the hope of getting $2 billion, but decided to keep Netspend after failing to get the price it wanted. Sources said Global Payments was expected to attempt another sale last year.

Read more: Embedded Finance Tackles Generation Gap to Win and Serve Older Generations

PYMNTS spoke Friday with Walt Granville, Netspend’s senior vice president of bank and network operations and partnerships, about some of the challenges of getting older consumers into the world of embedded finance.

“There are a lot of booby traps in there for the older generations,” he said, even though about half of them have moved online.

Older consumers may stick to the rules that they’ve been taught as online scams have increased: Don’t unveil any personally identifiable information, and don’t share your credit card number over the phone. Yet, the apps that older consumers are considering ask them to hand over that information by entering it online.