Fintech Acquisition: Global Payments Firm Nium to Acquire Ixaris, a Company Offering Travel Payments Optimization

Nium, an international B2B payments service provider, revealed on Monday (June 7, 2021) that it had signed a “definitive” agreement to acquire Ixaris, a company focused on travel payments optimization.

As mentioned in a release shared with CI, the transaction is set to be finalized “early in the third quarter of 2021, subject to customary closing conditions.”

The announcement also mentioned that Ixaris offers “flexible” funding and payment methods that “help airlines and online travel agents (OTAs) in the £230 billion travel sector reduce surcharges, earn rebates, flatten FX fees, and streamline reconciliation.”

As an industry leader, Ixaris issued over 10 million virtual cards back in 2019, the announcement revealed while adding that since its official launch, Ixaris has handled around 24 million transfers for over 200 clients in 40 different countries for “a total payment volume of £5 billion.”

As noted in the release, Ixaris is well-known for “transforming the travel payments industry with the introduction of Europe’s first virtual prepaid card in 2003.” The release added that all of Ixaris’ 86 workers currently based in London and Malta will be joining the Nium family.

Prajit Nanu, Co-founder and CEO at Nium, stated:

“Airlines and OTAs are actively transforming their technologies and processes in anticipation of a surge in global travel happening this year. The travel industry has long been dependent on slow-moving, monolithic payment platforms. Our acquisition will serve to replace these incumbents with a modern solution that combines Ixaris’ leading virtual card capability with Nium’s advanced pay-in, pay-out and embedded foreign exchange capabilities. We welcome the Ixaris team to the Nium family and together we look forward to helping the travel sector bounce back across the globe.”

Today’s acquisition should enable Nium to execute on its goal to offer a single API integration to access the global payments infrastructure.

As noted in the announcement, the Nium platform will allow clients to “quickly deploy new financial services from card issuance to cross-border payments.” With licenses in more than 40 different markets and integrations in “as little as four weeks,” Nium provides “the speed and scale for customers to unlock new revenue opportunities and improve cash flow economics throughout the global economy,” the release noted.

Mark Anthony Spiteri, CEO, Ixaris Group, remarked:

“As part of the Nium family, we can offer the broadest portfolio of virtual card offerings to travel businesses across the globe. All aspects of our company, from our technologies to our people, perfectly complement Nium and we look forward to increasing our geographic footprint to new regions, including the United States.”

FT Partners acted as the exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Nium on its acquisition of Ixaris.

Ixaris is a payments optimization firm with a portfolio of virtual Mastercard and Visa cards that “helps companies make smarter payment choices.”



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