Africa’s most valuable company by market capitalization, Naspers is looking to consolidate its online payments interests globally.
Naspers recently acquired a Turkish online payments firm for $165 million and is merging it with South African company PayU — the fintech and online payments division of Naspers.
Iyzico, the Turkish company, will now operate as part of its South African former competitor, PayU, according to Moneyweb.
Listen to GHOGH with Jamarlin Martin | Episode 7: Tayo Oviosu
Jamarlin Martin catches up with Tayo Oviosu at SXSW 2018. Oviosu is the Founder and CEO of Paga, the leading mobile payments company in Nigeria.
The Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed Naspers has a market value of around $95 billion, and plans to list on Amsterdam’s Euronext bourse in July, FT reports.
Launched in 2002, PayU is a payment service provider for merchants and buyers in 18 markets across Africa, Asia, Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.
Iyzico was founded in Turkey in 2013 and has been a competitor of South Africa’s PayU in the Turkish payments market.
Naspers paid $165 million to acquire the Turkish firm, combining it with its established payments brand, Finextra reports.
The deal gives PayU a foot in the Turkish market, which Naspers believes will be a high-growth e-commerce market in the coming years, according to Bloomberg.
Naspers is targeting Turkey’s 3 million small and medium-sized businesses through an online payment product designed to get small enterprises accepting online payments.
Only 5 percent of Turkish small businesses sell online. Naspers hopes to change that to between 15 and 30 percent through PayU over the next few years, Moneyweb reports.
In March, PayU completed the acquisition of U.S. payment security and mobile payments company Wimbo for $70 million, according to 99Mag.
The acquisition was part of Naspers’s strategy to invest in online payments firms. Around $1 billion in investment is earmarked for the Indian market, Pymnts reported.
Wibmo has operations in India, offering payment processing services across risk, fraud, authentication, and mobile payments.
PayU launched its payment service in Kenya in June, with a focus on entering the East African market which includes Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania, according to InvestorsKing.
Economic growth in the East Africa region is expected to remain at a steady 5.9 percent in 2019 — higher than North Africa (4.9 percent) and Southern Africa (1.2 percent), according to the African Development Bank.
