ACI To Purchase Western Union’s Speedpay Business

ACI Worldwide has announced a deal with The Western Union Company that will see ACI acquire Speedpay, Western Union’s United States bill pay business, for $750 million in an all-cash transaction.

The combined ACI-Western Union business will service over 4,000 customers across the U.S. and have reach that expands into consumer finance, insurance, healthcare, higher education, utilities, government and mortgage.

“This acquisition reinforces ACI’s ‘any payment, every possibility’ vision and accelerates our ability to capitalize on the growing global payment transaction opportunity over the next five years. It presents a great opportunity for ACI to strengthen and add scale to our On Demand business, and provides fuel for growth and increased R&D investment which will benefit both ACI and Speedpay customers,” said Phil Heasley, president and CEO, ACI Worldwide. “We are excited to welcome the talented Speedpay team into the ACI family. With decades of proven success, the ACI and Speedpay teams have a deep understanding of bill payments, and the combination of our portfolios delivers an unmatched value proposition.”

When the acquisition is completed, ACI plans to combine Speedpay and UP Bill Payment platforms into a unified bill payment platform that will support billions of transactions. All in, the U.S. bill pay market accounted for 15 billion transactions in 2018 — and the vertical continues to grow at steady mid-single-digit rates annually. And while ACI is excited to delve deeper into the bill pay market, Western Union is looking to its future where it can re-up its focus on digital services and cross-border, cross-currency payments.

“Divesting the Speedpay business allows us to concentrate our resources on our cross-border money movement strategies and monetize a non-core asset for our shareholders. Our strategy remains focused on expanding our digital services, leveraging our platform to unlock new cross-border, cross-currency payments opportunities, and generating additional operating efficiencies.”

Centerview Partners LLC will be the financial advisor to Western Union, while BofA Merrill Lynch is acting as financial advisor to ACI.