Payments tech M&A is heating up big time in 2015.
With Apple launching Apple Pay last fall, Google working on its own Android Pay system to tokenize card numbers and payments startups attracting big VC funding, a variety of players from Samsung to PayPal to Visa have all turned to acquisitions this year to complement their own offerings and get a piece of the payments pie.
Given the increase in payments M&A, we wanted to use CB Insights to highlight the most acquisitive players in payments tech over the past five years. And on the top of the list is eBay/PayPal, which has acquired seven payments tech companies over the period, the latest being General Catalyst-backed Paydiant for $300M and the largest for Accel-backed payments platform Braintree for $800M.
Of note, acquisitive players in the space span both payments-specific firms such as Heartland Payments and WorldPay as well as some of the largest corporations in tech such as Google and Intuit.
The full list of top payments tech acquirers below.
| Rank | Acquirer | Market Cap (3/2/15) | Select M&A |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | eBay (PayPal) | $70.18B | Braintree, Paydiant, Zong |
| 2 | Heartland Payments Systems | $1.76B | ECSI, Leaf Holdings, MCS Software |
| 2 | WorldPay | Privately held | SecureNet Payment Systems, YESpay, Century Payments |
| 4 | $379.8B | TxVia, JVL Ventures (Softcard), Jambool | |
| 4 | MasterCard WorldWide | $103.77B | Truaxis, C-SAM, DataCash Group |
| 4 | Verifone Holdings | $4.01B | Point International, Destiny Electronic Commerce |
| 7 | Visa | $167.16B | TrialPay, Fundamo, PlaySpan |
| 7 | Intuit | $27.08B | Check, AisleBuyer |
| 7 | InComm | Privately held | Medagate, On-Line Strategies |
| 7 | CardConnect | Privately Held | Princeton Payment Solution, Marathon Solutions |
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