Global Payments has secured approval from the European Commission for its $21.5bn (£17.22bn) acquisition of payment technology company Total System Services (TSYS).
The Commission ruled that the proposed acquisition will not result in any competition concerns. The Commission said that there is limited horizontal overlap between the operations of the two US-based global payment solutions provider.
It said that there are no anti-competitive vertical effects resulting from the combination of the activities of the two companies.
Based in Atlanta, Global Payments offers enterprise and payment management solutions, payment card processing, merchant acquiring, and online payment portal solutions.
On the other hand, TSYS, which is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia, offers payment card processing, merchant acquiring services, and products like software for payment card processing.
The proposed transaction was assessed under the normal merger review procedure, said the European Commission.
The payment technology companies entered into the merger deal in May 2019. Through the merger, Global Payments and TSYS aim to create a major pure play payment technology provider with operations across the world.
Upon completion of the merger, the combined payment technology company will process over 50 billion transactions annually in 38 countries physically and more than 100 countries virtually.
The combined company will operate as Global Payments and will serve nearly 3.5 million predominantly small to mid-sized (SMB) merchant locations over 1,300 financial institutions in more than 100 countries.
The enlarged Global Payments is likely to have a salesforce made up of more than 3,500 sales and sales support professionals.
Terms of the Global Payments-TSYS merger
As per the merger terms, shareholders of TSYS will exchange each of their shares with 0.8101 of Global Payments shares. After completion of the transaction, Global Payments shareholders will own a stake of 52% in the combined payment technology company, while TSYS shareholders will own the remaining 48% stake.
The merger, which needs other regulatory approvals, shareholders’ approvals, and meeting of other customary closing conditions, is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year.
Earlier this month, TSYS launched a new authentication product for real-time verification of customer identities. The TSYS Authentication Platform is said to leverage customer experience data collected from direct cardholder touchpoints, which is integrated into the existing authentication systems of TSYS clients.
