Worldpay To Open Offices In New Zealand, Australia

U.K.-based payments company Worldpay said it will expand to Australia and New Zealand in an effort to take on more established payments services like Visa, Mastercard and American Express, according to report by Reuters.

The move to Australia is an effort to capitalize on the country’s thriving eCommerce industry, which is worth almost $30 billion and rising.

Worldpay General Manager of Global eCommerce for Asia Pacific Phil Pomford said the move is a great opportunity.

“We see growth opportunities to come into a market where there is rising employment and great population growth, and where the shift into eCommerce and mobile commerce is significant,” he said.

Worldpay will set its sights on the online gaming, digital content, online retail and travel industries. The company was acquired by Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) earlier in March, and is valued at $43 billion.

Fidelity, which is already established in Australia, provides services for businesses like Lonely Planet and Webjet, which cater to travel, and online gaming company Virtual Gaming World.

“(With the new offices), we will be better able to attract new customers and service them going forward,” Pomford said.

In addition to legacy payment companies like Visa, Worldpay will also compete with payment services through Australian banks and with tech competitor Adyen.

Worldpay was also granted a payments license to operate in New Zealand.

The company processes 40 billion transactions every year, with upwards of 300 payment types through 146 countries and 126 currencies.

Last month, Worldpay and enterprise software firm Sage Group teamed up to expand corporate card payment capabilities for joint business clients. In a press release at the time, the companies pointed to the U.K. market’s struggles with late invoice payments, citing Sage research that found 17 percent of all invoices issued from small and medium-sized businesses in the U.K. and Ireland are paid late. Nine percent of U.K. invoices are ultimately written off by small businesses as bad debt, the companies added.