- YellowPepper operates in the Latin American market and helps financial institutions and end users with tasks such as mobile banking.
- The move by Visa is understood to be part of the financial firm’s ‘network of networks’ plan, which will see it become a central access point for those looking to move money.
- A senior figure at Visa elaborated on this, explaining that there were various benefits to the merger – including when it comes to security and safety.
The acquisition of small payments technology company YellowPepper by household payments name Visa has been completed.
YellowPepper, which works to help financial institutions in markets such as Latin America, was first set up in 2014 and is involved in sectors such as mobile banking and online money transfers.
It works in a variety of Latin American markets, and has about 50 clients.
In terms of the end users it can reach, it has around five million users active on its platforms each month, according to press reports.
Its takeover by Visa marks the first time that the corporation has made an acquisition move like this in the region.
There is, however, some history between the two companies.
Visa was involved in the Series D funding round that YellowPepper conducted two years ago.
Overall, YellowPepper raised around US $12m in the funding round.
A press article on the topic highlighted that the move was part of an overarching strategy for Visa.
It is understood to be following what is known as a ‘network of networks’ plan, which aims to establish the firm in the middle of various money movement pathways.
In a statement, Eduardo Coello, the regional president for Latin America and the Caribbean at Visa, said that the firm was looking forward to building on this strategy.
He said that this could have a number of dimensions, including in terms of security.
“Bringing YellowPepper into the Visa family will help us build on our ‘network of networks’ strategy, by combining Visa’s proven technology, processing and security capabilities with the complementary solutions of YellowPepper,” he said.
This move will “ultimately help support the current and future needs of governments, banks and consumers around the world,” he added.
Visa’s broader statement went into more depth about exactly what the merger with YellowPepper will mean for customers.
It said that Visa’s “value added services”, which include a range of risk management options, will now be opened up to its extensive client base.
“With YellowPepper, clients will be able to enable new use cases and expand Visa’s value added services, such as tokenization, identity validation, authentication and risk tools to deliver an integrated user experience,” it said.
It went on to say that there will also be a boost for customers in the form of compatibility with Visa Direct, which is the company’s push payments platform enabling instant payment services.