Visa Closes Prisma and Newpay Acquisition to Expand in Argentina

Visa completed its acquisition of Argentina-based companies Prisma and Newpay, eight days after announcing that it planned to do so.

The company said Feb. 19 that it entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the firms and expected the transaction to close during the current quarter, subject to closing conditions.

Visa said in a Friday (Feb. 27) press release that it completed the acquisition, though the transaction remains subject to review by the Argentine competition authority.

“Today marks an exciting new chapter as Prisma and Newpay officially join Visa,” Gabriela Renaudo, group country manager, Visa Argentina and Southern Cone, said in the release. “We’re now focused on integration and delivering on our shared vision to transform Argentina’s payments ecosystem. By combining Prisma and Newpay with Visa’s global capabilities, we’re ready to accelerate innovation and create even greater value for consumers, businesses and our clients in the country.”

Prisma provides credit, debit and prepaid card issuer processing, while Newpay operates real-time payments services, an ATM network and a bill payment platform. Together, they serve millions of consumers and businesses across Argentina, according to the release.

Now that the transaction is closed, the combination of their technology platforms and Visa’s global network and value-added services will accelerate the deployment of tokenization, biometric authentication, intelligent risk tools, agentic commerce solutions and other advanced technologies, per the release.

“These end-to-end capabilities will improve services from issuers and enhance speed and security for consumers, while delivering agnostic processing that supports any card brand processed by Prisma and all payment methods offered by Newpay,” Visa said in the release.

Visa acquired Prisma and Newpay from private equity firm Advent International. Advent said in a Feb. 19 press release that it led a strategic transformation of their parent company, Argentine payments company Group Prisma, and separated that company into three independent platforms. The third platform, merchant acquiring business Payway, remains owned by Advent.

The PYMNTS Intelligence and Galileo Financial Technologies collaboration “Digital Developments: Charting Digital Payment Growth in Latin America” found that consumers across the region are shifting from cash to mobile wallets, real-time transfers and other digital tools.