US FinTech Change Financial To Buy Wirecard Australia, New Zealand For $5.7M

Change is ahead for Change Financial.

The publicly-traded company that serves U.S. customers has agreed to buy Wirecard’s assets in Australia and New Zealand, the company said in an announcement.

In a filing with the Australian Securities Exchange, the U.S. FinTech with offices in Hollywood revealed it bought the Wirecard divisions for 7.8 million Australian dollars ($5.7 million).

FastInForm.com reported the purchase will expand Change Financial as it marks another step in the dissolution of Wirecard’s worldwide operations amid an accounting scandal.

Wirecard provides payment platform and card management solutions to banks and FinTechs. Prior to its declaration of insolvency in June, it hosted more than 120 customers in three dozen countries. Many of its former clients were blue-chip stock companies, including Australia’s big four banks and supermarket chains.

Change offers Banking-as-a-Solution (BaaS) services, a model in which banks integrate their digital banking services into the products of nonbank businesses.

Once valued at $28 billion, Wirecard filed for insolvency in June in a Munich court following an auditor’s disclosure that $2.1 billion of supposed deposits were missing from two banks in the Philippines. The company admitted it had debts of more than $4 billion.

FastInForm reported the acquisition would instantly scale up Change’s operations and give the payments processor a global platform. It is expected to add more than $11 million in revenue for the FinTech and comes with partnerships with Visa, and American Express.

The sale comes a few days after Newcastle, England-based Railsbank signed a deal to buy Wirecard Card Solutions in the U.K. Financial terms were not disclosed. Under the deal, Railsbank will acquire Wirecard’s card technology, clients and some employees.

“This is a huge step forward for everyone,” said Nigel Verdon, CEO and co-founder of Railsbank, in a statement. “Our goal is to provide a safe haven and to deliver an uninterrupted service for the [program] managers and the cardholders. We have already successfully migrated a number of clients and have everything in place for a phased and controlled migration at scale.”

Last month, Michael Jaffé, Wirecard’s court appointed insolvency administrator, said an agreement has been reached to sell Wirecard’s Brazilian business to Sao Paulo-based PagSeguro Digital, one of the nation’s largest mobile payment-based eCommerce companies.

“It is particularly pleasing that the sale of Wirecard Brazil has been the first success with respect to the sale of assets because the framework conditions of the Wirecard insolvency proceedings have been, and still are, very difficult,” Jaffé said in a statement.