Australia-based EML Payments has agreed to acquire Sentenial Group for an upfront enterprise value of €70m, in addition to an earn-out component of up to €40m.
Sentenial is a cloud-native, API-first, full-stack payments company, processing €45bn per annum and is regulated both in France and the UK.
The company, along with its open banking brand Nuapay, operates in the European Open Banking sector.
With the acquisition, EML will gain capabilities to manage payments across scheme (Mastercard and Visa) and non-scheme (A2A), along with both card and non-card payments.
Sentenial founder and CEO Sean Fitzgerald said: “Nuapay’s mission is to be the best way to pay and get paid. We are proud to have developed a market-leading Account-to-Account and Open Banking payments platform over nearly two decades in business.
“The revolution in payments caused by Open Banking and Real-Time Payments is rapidly building momentum globally, and we are hugely excited by this opportunity to move to a global scale as part of EML.
“From the moment EML approached us, we’ve been impressed by their vision, ambition and growing ecosystem.”
The transaction is expected to be completed in the late financial year 2021, subject to receipt of regulatory approvals.
Once the deal is closed, the combined group will become a large-scale FinTech enabler in open banking and prepaid markets, with more than A$90bn ($59bn) in Gross Debit Volume (GDV).
The Australian firm said that the acquisition is in line with its Accelerator Strategy and aims to expand the international reach for Nuapay open banking products.
With the combined capabilities, EML is enabled to mass market a single API-based platform that offers all dominant A2A transfer payment types, to support clients.
A2A payment types include Direct Debits, Open Banking, Credit Transfers, Virtual Account products, International Bank Account Numbers, Single Euro Payments Area, Faster Payments Service and Instant Payments.
EML managing director and Group CEO Tom Cregan said: “EML has transitioned over the years from primarily a gift-card company to a company with a diverse revenue base across multiple prepaid products.
“The acquisition of Sentenial will be the next evolution for EML, as we transition into a broader payments business by adding instant account-to-account (Open Banking) payments into our suite of solutions for current and prospective customers.
“EML supports thousands of prepaid programmes globally, and our platform is how our customers interact with us.”
