Mergers and acquisitions in payments and merchant services have slowed amid tough economic conditions and the fallout from the FIS-Worldpay deal, which just didn’t work out. Against that backdrop, M&A activity in those spaces is under increasing scrutiny, but deals still happen, and a close examination of them reveals much about the acquirers and the future of the industry overall.

This Javelin Strategy & Research report looks at deals involving eight major merchant services players that made 18 notable acquisitions in 2022 and so far in 2023. The acquisitions by Block, FIS, Fiserv, Ingenico, Shift4, Shopify, Stripe, and Toast help reveal the broader strategies of the acquirers as they look to broaden their offerings to clients and keep up with their competitors.

Key questions discussed in this report:

• What major mergers-and-acquisitions deals were made in 2022 and have been made in 2023 so far?
• What were the motivations behind these deals and what do they reveal about merchant services firms’ strategies at the moment?
• What does recent M&A activity say about the future of the merchant services space and its potential for more M&A?

Companies mentioned:

Afterpay, Apollo Global Management, BentoBox, Block, Deliverr, Finaro, FIS, Fiserv, GoParrot, Ingenico, Online Payments Group, Payrix, Phos, Shift4, Shopify, Square, Stripe, Toast, Worldline, Worldpay