More Fintech Consolidation with Global Payments–TSYS Deal

As the masses move from cash to cashless, the fintech world is consolidating yet again. On Tuesday, Global Payments, Inc. announced it was purchasing Total System Services Inc. (TSYS) for $21.5 billion in stock.

This comes on the heels of recent fintech deals we’ve covered: in March, tech giant FIS agreed to pay a whopping $35 billion for Worldpay in the largest digital payments M&A deal to date, and in January, Fiserv acquired payments powerhouse First Data for $22 billion—another all-stock deal like this week’s Global Payments–TSYS stock deal.

This will make Global Payments one of the largest fintech players, capable of making 50 billion transactions a year. It will serve 3.5 million small-to-medium-sized businesses and 1,300 financial institutions in about 100 countries. The name of the game in integrated payment technology is scale and the ability to bypass payments networks by routing purchases directly to banking systems. And it looks as if Global Payments will be able to do just that.

We’ll be sure to follow this, as the global payment market is predicted to reach $3 trillion a year in revenue by 2023, according to consulting firm McKinsey.