JPMorgan to grow payments business with acquisition of Renovite

The JPMorgan logo is seen in New York City, US, on January 10, 2017. REUTERS/Stephanie Keith

LONDON, Sept 12 (Reuters) – JPMorgan ( JPM.N ) has agreed to buy U.S. firm Renovite Technologies to expand its payment processing business and win market share where big banks face stiff competition from fintech rivals.

Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

California-based Renovate has presence in India and Britain, offers cloud-native technology to facilitate payments across a range of products, and has about 140 employees, including 125 engineers.

“This acquisition will help us achieve our goal of developing a next-generation payment processing platform globally,” said Max Neukirchen, head of global payments and commerce solutions at JPMorgan.

Viren Rana, founder and CEO of Renovate, called JPMorgan’s payments division a “natural home” for the company’s people and technology.

The deal gives JPMorgan a broader and more efficient payment platform, offering customers additional payment methods for credit and debit card transactions worldwide.

It also helps it compete with fintech challengers such as Stripe and Adyen ( ADYEN.AS ), which are at the forefront of digital payment technology.

JPMorgan said in January it will spend more than $12 billion on technology by 2022.

The launch on Renovate follows a move earlier this year to buy a 49 percent stake in Athens-based payments fintech Viva Wallet and a majority stake in German auto giant Volkswagen’s ( VOWG_p.DE ) payments business ahead of a planned IPO. In-car technology that allows drivers to automatically pay for gas or tolls. Read more

The Wall Street bank has been on an acquisition spree for the past 18 months, with about 30 deals last year including British digital asset manager Nutmeg and US provider of ESG metrics OpenInvest. Read more

Reporting by Pamela Barbaglia; Editing by David Evans

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