By Wilma Tillqvist (Stockholm School of Economics) Martín Palomar, Olivier Baverez and Léo Clément (HEC Paris)
Overview of the deal
Acquirer: Visa
Target: Tink AB
Total Transaction Size: $1.8B
Closed date: 24th June 2021
FinTech has challenged and transformed parts of the financial services sector. Visa’s recently announced €1.8B acquisition of the Swedish open banking platform Tink can be seen in this light as Visa looks to expand its tech capabilities. Visa recently tried to expand into the open banking landscape via its attempt to acquire Plaid, but the acquisition failed due to antitrust issues. The partnership with Tink shows that Visa has not given up its attempts, as Visa and Tink now together seek to accelerate innovation in European open banking. Similar moves are seen among competitors, as illustrated by Mastercard’s acquisition of Finicity in 2020. The Tink acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals, which could be a risk surrounding the deal considering the Plaid outcome. However, if approved, the acquisition has the potential to provide benefits to both Visa and Tink, including growth, innovation and diversification.
The €1.8B consideration, inclusive of cash and retention incentives, will be funded by Visa using cash. Tink’s brand, management team and headquarters will be retained.
“By bringing together Visa’s network of networks and Tink’s open banking capabilities we will deliver increased value to European consumers and businesses with tools to make their financial lives more simple, reliable and secure.” – Al Kelly, CEO and Chairman of Visa
Company Details: (Acquirer - Visa Inc.)
The payments technology company Visa is a global leader in digital payments, active in more than 200 countries. The company processes transactions (authorization, clearing and settlement) via the network VisaNet, offers payment products such as credit cards and provides value-added services. In 2020, the company processed ~140.8B transactions and 3.5B cards were in issue. Visa is publicly listed on the NYSE (NYSE:V).
Founded in 1958, headquartered in San Francisco, California (USA)
CEO: Alfred Kelly
Number of employees: 20,500
Market Cap: $508.9B (as of 06/07/2021)
EV: $514.7B
LTM Revenue: $21.3B
LTM EBITDA: $14.4B
LTM EV/Revenue: 24.1x
LTM EV/EBITDA: 35.8x
Company Details: (Target - Tink AB)
Stockholm-headquartered Tink is an open banking platform that connects to over 3,400 banks and institutions across 18 markets, primarily in Europe. The platform uses a single API, and the product portfolio allows customers to perform account and income checks, access transaction data, initiate payments and build personal finance management applications.
Founded in 2012, headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden
CEO: Daniel Kjellén
Number of employees: 400
Market Cap: N/A (privately held company)
Revenue: SEK 114.5M (FY 2019)
Projections and Assumptions
Short-term consequences
First, the fintech Tink offers its technology to more than 3,400 financial institutions, representing 250M customers in Europe. The merger will, therefore, in the short term, bring new customers to Visa. Visa also wants to become the reference in bank-startup relations and avoid the antitrust sanctions it could have faced a few months ago. Indeed, Visa tried to get its hands on the open banking specialist Plaid.
Recently, Europe implemented the PSD2 directive making it easier for third parties to access customer banking data. This gives Visa a foothold in a European market with strong growth potential.