Vista Equity Partners is exploring options for U.K.-based Finastra that could include a sale, Reuters reported Tuesday (Sept. 15), citing four sources familiar with the matter.
Other options could include Vista selling a stake or Finastra merging with or purchasing another player in the industry, the sources said, adding that the company has already drawn interest from potential buyers, including other investment firms.
The Reuters report frames this as Vista trying to capitalize on increasing investor interest in financial software company, even as uncertainty about artificial intelligence (AI) disruption causes valuations in the sector to struggle.
Two of the sources said Finastra could be valued at more than high-single-digit billion dollars, while a third person said traditional earnings multiples for a specialized software company would put that figure at as much as $12 billion.
PYMNTS has reached out to Vista for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. A spokesperson for Finastra declined to comment.
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As Reuters notes, Finastra makes software used by banks and other financial institutions for payments, lending, and corporate banking services. It was formed by Vista in 2017 through the merger of Misys and Canada’s D+H and, per its website, serves 80% of the world’s top banks.
The report added that Finastra has seen substantial change since Chris Walters became its CEO last year, shedding divisions to focus more on its core competencies of payments and lending software.
This shift included selling Finastra’s treasury and capital markets business in March 2025 to buyout firm Apax Partners, which was rebranded as Teciem, and a deal in June to sell Universal Banking (UB), its core banking business, to Pollen Street Capital.
The companies said Pollen Street will provide investment to UB to help the company speed product innovation, bolster customer delivery and expand capabilities.
PYMNTS spoke earlier this year with Barry Rodrigues, executive vice president of payments at Finastra, about efforts by banks to modernize their payments system.
As that report noted, that payment infrastructure has not kept up with client-facing work, as banks invested in digital channels during COVID but held off on more difficult upgrades.
“The underlying platforms have not been modernized as much because it’s not so easy. Banks have got to keep the lights on with mission-critical systems at the same time as modernize,” Rodrigues said, while also outlining what modernization cannot compromise.
“Payments are deterministic,” he told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster. “They’re not probabilistic, so they have to work all the time, every time.”
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