It’s a big day for mobile banking and payment company Monitise plc.
To start with, it’s announced a £24.7 million investment from Visa Europe. As part of the agreement, Visa Europe President and Chief Executive Peter Ayliffe will join Monitise as a non-executive director. Monitise already has a relationship with Visa Europe and with Visa Inc.
In addition, Monitise has agreed to acquire the 51% stake in its US joint venture, Monitise Americas, held by the Metavante Corporation subsidiary of Fidelity National Information Services (FIS). In return Metavante is getting a 3.3% stake in Monitise.
This means Visa Europe will end up with an 8.8% shareholding in Monitise, while FIS will have 3.3%.
Alastair Lukies, Group Chief Executive of Monitise, said “Visa Europe’s investment in Monitise, coupled with a deepening relationship eight months after our two companies first entered into a partnership, establishes our role as the platform of choice for mobile money services in Europe. We are excited by the opportunities ahead for Monitise and the global mobile money industry as mobiles increasingly become the accepted new way to bank, pay and shop. Our evolved relationship with FIS ensures that Monitise is ideally placed to play a leadership role in the North American mobile money market, which is following similar trends of growth to those we have experienced in the UK over the past 12 months. It has always been our strategy to partner with the world’s leading companies in a way that ensures optimal value for our shareholders.”
Peter Ayliffe, CEO of Visa Europe, said “Monitise’s mobile platform expertise supports our drive to lead innovation in payments technology and will help us continue to deliver a range of best-in-class, industry-leading services for our members - Europe’s leading payment providers. My appointment to the Monitise board, through this investment, will allow us to directly influence product development to help meet the needs of our customers. We are here to make payments technologies available to our members in whatever format they require to offer the services best suited to their end consumer. For Visa, it is about offering the widest possible choice, with all the security and reliability that our members know they can expect from us, and that consumers demand from payments technologies.”