Global Payments, the global payment technology provider, is set to acquire payments firm Worldpay from GTCR and FIS, while simultaneously selling its issuer solutions business to FIS.
In a release, Global Payments revealed that it is acquiring Worldpay for $24.25billion, signifying a new chapter for the payments firm that was acquired by FIS in 2019, before selling a majority stake in Worldpay to GTCR in February 2024.
Worldpay, which provides payment services to merchants and financial institutions globally, generates 40 billion transactions across 146 countries and 135 currencies. By combining its capabilities with Global Payments, the firms hope to achieve extensive global reach and scale, serving more than six million customers and enabling approximately 94 billion transactions and $3.7trillion in volume across more than 175 countries.
By selling its issuer solutions business, Global Payments will likely shift its focus to a solutions provider focused more on merchants.
“The acquisition of Worldpay and divestiture of Issuer Solutions further sharpen our strategic focus and simplify Global Payments as a pure play merchant solutions business with significantly expanded capabilities, extensive scale, greater market access and an enhanced financial profile,” explained Cameron Bready, CEO of Global Payments.
“Global Payments and Worldpay bring together highly complementary capabilities and distribution networks, creating significant opportunities for the combined business to accelerate growth, amplify investment in innovation and elevate client and partner experiences with best-in-class solutions. This transaction provides us with one of the world’s most feature-rich platforms to support ecommerce and enterprise customers across key high-growth geographies and verticals, while also enhancing our integrated and embedded capabilities to deliver seamless solutions to software and platform providers worldwide.”
Merchant focused
Bready concluded: “We could not be more excited about the future, as we bring together Global Payments and Worldpay and establish a strategic partnership with FIS. These transactions enhance our strengths, open new growth opportunities and accelerate our transformation, which we expect will drive significant value for our customers, partners, team members and shareholders.”
The combination will aim to bring Global Payments’ differentiated merchant solutions focused on SMB customers together with Worldpay’s e-commerce capabilities, positioning the combined business to deliver end-to-end payment solutions and leading customer experiences for merchants of all types and sizes globally.
“We are excited to enter this next phase of Worldpay’s evolution by uniting with Global Payments to create something special in the payments industry,” added Charles Drucker, CEO at Worldpay. “Our solutions will enhance value for our customers, especially for Worldpay’s small and medium-sized businesses. The combination of Global Payments and Worldpay brings together two strong teams with similar histories, a shared culture of innovation and deep payments expertise. I am thrilled about the new opportunities this transaction brings for both of our businesses and our team members worldwide.”
The transactions are subject to receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and are expected to close in the first half of 2026.
As part of the transaction, Global Payments and FIS will also establish a commercial relationship to bring a comprehensive suite of solutions, including core banking, treasury management, embedded commerce, issuer processing, risk and fraud and merchant solutions to partners on a global basis.
