Visa has conducted its second commercial investment in as many months, securing terms to acquire a majority stake in Mexican payments service processor Prosa.
The US-based payments giant hopes to open up Mexico to the international payments ecosystem by increasing options for both consumers and merchants, whilst also benefiting the domestic Mexican payments landscape.
Following completion of the acquisition, Visa and Prosa have outlined some ambitious goals for the Mexican payments market. This includes a plan to improve the technology supporting Prosa’s brand agnostic services as well as those offered by Visa, such as tokenized payments.
Additionally, Visa asserts that Prosa will ‘push for new services’ such as real-time payments and ‘state of the art technology’ using Visa’s own solutions, with the goal of making the Mexican payments ecosystem more effective.
Eduardo Coello, Regional President for Visa Latin America and the Caribbean, said: “Technology and innovation are the foundation of our business and at the core of what we do. As such, this investment is part of our ‘network of networks’ strategy where we leverage best-in-class technologies from around the world to complement our own.
“With the enhanced technology infrastructure provided by Visa’s global payments network, we are setting the groundwork to develop new, innovative ways to pay and be paid for consumers and small businesses alike alongside local issuers and acquirers in Mexico.”
Lastly, the duo hope to offer new products and services to Prosa’s existing Mexican partners, particularly offerings tailored towards micro and small businesses and digital solutions. Other planned rollouts include e-commerce transaction services and AI-powered fraud risk management tools.
Terms of the agreement will see Prosa continue to operate independently using its own tech infrastructure, whilst Visa simultaneously expands the Mexican firm’s product offerings with its aforementioned digital solutions and shares knowledge and experience.
Visa expects to complete the transaction during the second half of 2024, and in the meantime has pledged to work closely with Mexican payments stakeholders, including regulatory authorities and Prosa’s own shareholders, management and Board of Directors.
Current shareholders in Prosa – which handles over 10 billion transactions annually – are Banorte, HSBC Mexico, Invex, Santander Mexico, Scotiabank Mexico and Banjército.
Visa’s majority stake in the firm follows the San Francisco-based company’s involvement in a €8.5m funding round in Enfuce, which the Finnish firm intends to use to support its expansion plans in Belgium, France and Germany.
