JPMorgan Buys InstaMed For $500M

In a bid to expand its healthcare payments presence, JPMorgan said Friday (May 17) that it has entered a deal to acquire InstaMed, a payments technology company focused on the space.

Though financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed in the release announcing the deal, CNBC reported the purchase price was more than $500 million. The deal carries the largest price tag for an acquisition by JPMorgan in more than a decade, since it bought Washington Mutual in 2008.

With the deal, the banking giant will get access to InstaMed’s network of healthcare stakeholders, spanning payers, consumers and providers.

“The acquisition will expand the bank’s suite of payment services designed specifically for healthcare,” said JPMorgan.

InstaMed’s digital payments offerings aim to alleviate the challenges facing the healthcare vertical by improving the patient experience, lowering collection costs and reducing reliance on paper-based processes. The company noted that in the United States, healthcare spend is more than $3 trillion. InstaMed processed $94 billion in transactions last year, the report noted.

“We’ve made significant investments in our wholesale payments business over the years, and this acquisition will give us a unique advantage in one of the fastest growing sectors. With InstaMed, we combine the strength and scale of JPMorgan Chase’s payments capabilities with a leading healthcare payments solution for consumers, providers and payers,” said Takis Georgakopoulos, global head of wholesale payments for JPMorgan Chase.

In an interview with CNBC, Georgakopoulos said the InstaMed assets will be folded into the bank’s wholesale payments division, which moves $6 trillion a day for corporations around the world. The bank will offer InstaMed to its corporate clients, and possibly integrate it into JPMorgan bill-paying apps.