Latest news with #acquirers
Zawya
28-07-2025
- Business
- Zawya
New Bain & Company analysis details how buyers can unlock full value from carved-out businesses
Middle East – Bain & Company's latest insights, You've Decided to Buy a Carved-Out Business. Now What?, examine how acquirers can harness the full potential of divested businesses, while avoiding the common pitfalls that jeopardize success. Buying a divested business can be a strategic way to reshape your portfolio and jump-start growth. Whether the objective is to expand into new markets, fill gaps in a product portfolio, or gain quick access to revenue, customers, operational capacity, and talent, carve-outs can create significant value for acquirers. But too many buyers focus only on getting to Day 1 and overlook the need for a solid integration thesis linked to the deal thesis and key value drivers. Bain's M&A Practitioners 2025 Outlook Survey reveals that cultural differences and process and technology issues are the biggest challenges in integrating carve-outs—followed by negotiating transition service agreements (TSAs), talent issues, and defining the carve-out perimeter. These issues must be proactively addressed from the outset. The most successful carve-out acquisitions start with due diligence that identifies both the carve-out-specific elements and the value creation plan required to underwrite the deal. They develop a solid integration thesis linked to essential value drivers and carve-out components. Here's Bain's advice for buyers to address these issues: Use cutting-edge diligence to assess the carve-out situation (e.g., perimeter, entanglements, standalone costs) and its impact on value creation. It's essential to dig deep into people, systems, and assets—including contracts and IP—and identify areas where TSAs or a build-out/integration plan are needed for Day 1. Diligence should also highlight commercial implications, such as distributor gaps or risk from comingled contracts. Accelerate process and systems decisions. In a carve-out, critical interactions such as invoicing customers, paying employees, and ensuring product availability must continue seamlessly on Day 1. This requires early decisions on cross-functional processes and systems to be kept, cloned, built, integrated, or retired. Plan and utilize TSAs strategically. While TSAs are an important mechanism for continuity on Day 1, buyers and sellers have different motivations for a TSA's scope and duration. Instead of operating on general rules of thumb like, 'We need longer TSAs' or 'We need to negotiate the best possible service,' buyers should look at TSAs as a bridge to achieve the integration priorities. Set the tone on people and culture. Buyers often has limited visibility into the talent and the capabilities needed to operate. In addition, carve-out employees may feel undervalued, and sellers may be reluctant to let the buyer interact with acquirers work with the seller early to identify key talent, define talent movement metrics, and establish a compelling future vision. They activate leadership to ensure employees feel valued and aligned. Plan for and execute Day 1 in a way that mitigates risk and prepares for the future state. While many acquirers see a smooth Day 1 as a win, the best carve-out acquirers prepare for cutovers at TSA exits with detailed plans to deliver synergies and future growth. Carve-outs can be attractive acquisitions that represent unique growth opportunities. But unlike full company acquisitions, carve-outs can break on Day 1 if things are not planned and managed well. -Ends- To arrange an interview or for further information, please contact: Christine Abi Assi – christine@ About Bain & Company Bain & Company is a global consultancy that helps the world's most ambitious change makers define the future. Across 65 cities in 40 countries, we work alongside our clients as one team with a shared ambition to achieve extraordinary results, outperform the competition, and redefine industries. We complement our tailored, integrated expertise with a vibrant ecosystem of digital innovators to deliver better, faster, and more enduring outcomes. Our 10-year commitment to invest more than $1 billion in pro bono services brings our talent, expertise, and insight to organizations tackling today's urgent challenges in education, racial equity, social justice, economic development, and the environment. We earned a platinum rating from EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social, and ethical performance ratings for global supply chains, putting us in the top 1% of all companies. Since our founding in 1973, we have measured our success by the success of our clients, and we proudly maintain the highest level of client advocacy in the industry.
Japan Times
23-07-2025
- Business
- Japan Times
JFTC gives OK to Visa Worldwide's business improvement plan
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) has approved a business improvement plan submitted by Visa Worldwide, which undertakes Visa card operations in Japan and other parts of the Asia-Pacific region. Through its investigation into a suspected violation of the antimonopoly law by Visa Worldwide, the JFTC concluded that swiftly executing proposed measures by the Singapore-based firm would restore a competitive environment under the so-called commitment procedures, the Japanese antimonopoly watchdog said in a press release Tuesday. In credit card transactions, sales data are transmitted from acquirers, or companies that enables retailers to accept payments by card, to card issuers through settlement service networks. An acquirer should pay a certain rate of fees to an issuer unless they are the same. The JFTC conducted an on-site inspection of Visa Worldwide's Japanese operation in July last year and has since found that the credit card operator notified acquirers in February 2018 of a plan to apply preferential rates to such fees only when they exclusively use the Visa Worldwide network and implemented the plan in November 2021. Some acquirers have actually come to take the advantage, according to people familiar with the matter. The commission, which took an administrative step against an international credit card brand for the first time ever, believes that Visa Worldwide's practice amounts to a transaction with a restraint condition prohibited by the law. However, it decided to refrain from imposing a severer sanction on the firm. "Better, cheaper networks should be provided through friendly competition between card companies," Masahiko Sogawa, a JFTC investigation division chief, said. In a comment, the Visa Worldwide Japan unit vowed to carry out the improvement measures to keep complying with the law.
Finextra
16-07-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Worldline launches AI-powered routing tech
Worldline [Euronext: WLN], a global leader in payment services, today announces the launch of its AI-powered routing solution, changing how businesses route payments globally. 0 This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author. Following successful pilots, the solution has delivered increased authorisation rates by more than 2% in addition to the 3% improvement achieved with its rule-based routing. Payments are routed through acquirers, and choosing the most suitable one leads to increased authorisation and optimised costs. Worldline's enhanced routing solution now leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse transaction data and select optimal payment routes in real time to further uplift conversion rates. Some of the pilot merchants experiencing an uplift of over 2% in authorisation rates (on top of 3% with rule-based routing). The existing rules-based solution routes transactions to the acquirer with low interchange fee, with one customer witnessing a €1.63M boost in revenue. By boosting authorisation rates and reducing cost, Worldline helps customers to maximise profit margins with no extra effort. The solution offers a unique dual-layered routing strategy, combining the reliability of predefined rules with the adaptability of machine learning. This allows businesses to adjust their payment processes to fit specific operational needs. Key features of the full solution include: • Omnichannel capability: the rules-based service can be used from multiple touchpoints for both online and in store transactions. • Global reach: supports multi-currency, multi-acquirer environments with intelligent cross border payment handling. • AI-powered routing: this feature used global online businesses selects the most favourable acquirers, increasing conversion rates. Khalil Kammoun, Head of shared services at Worldline, commented: 'With AI-driven routing, we're enhancing authorisation rates through smarter decision-making and unlocking new revenue for our customers. At Worldline, we view payments as a growth driver for businesses and through this solution, we are delivering on that promise. Our aim is to enable businesses to achieve new levels of efficiency, cost savings, and payment optimisation.' Worldline's AI-based solution is already being used by global e-commerce customers and will soon be available for other Worldline payment platforms. The solution positions Worldline as a trusted innovator and leader in the global payments industry, setting a new benchmark for intelligent transaction management.
Finextra
03-06-2025
- Business
- Finextra
Transactility adds ISO 20002 compatibility to JPOS infrastructure
Transactility Inc., the company behind the widely used open-source card payments framework jPOS, has announced the release of jPOS 3. 0 This major upgrade introduces ISO 20022 compatibility, improved performance, and enhanced observability features, positioning jPOS at the forefront of the future payment infrastructure. Trusted by some of the world's largest acquirers, issuers and payment schemes, jPOS has powered critical transaction systems for over two decades. With the launch of jPOS 3, Transactility Inc. aligns its framework with modern financial messaging standards, adding support for ISO 20022, enabling payment players to transition toward real-time and instant payments while relying on the same solid and trusted jPOS ecosystem. The update also delivers a significant performance boost. Institutions upgrading to jPOS 3 can expect up to 20,000 transactions per second—a substantial increase over previous versions—achievable even on standard hardware. These performance enhancements are complemented by system scalability and observability improvements, making jPOS 3 an ideal choice for high-volume, latency-sensitive payment networks. jPOS 3 is built on the latest Java technology stack and introduces new capabilities, including structured logging and real-time metric tracking, streamlining regulatory compliance, and improving fault detection. jPOS continues to differentiate itself through its open architecture and developer-friendly design. Engineering teams can rapidly implement and customize payment systems with full source code transparency, significantly reducing development time and vendor dependencies. jPOS 3 is a powerful solution for businesses seeking to modernise legacy infrastructure or replace rigid, closed platforms with something more flexible and future-ready. 'jPOS is a proven, 25-year-old framework adopted worldwide by some of the biggest names in payments,' said Alejandro Revilla, the original creator of jPOS and founder of Transactility Inc. 'For over 25 years, jPOS has quietly powered reliable global payments. With jPOS 3, we're raising the bar—delivering speed, scalability, ISO 20022 compliance, and unmatched ease of use for developers.'
