Nium Invests In B2B Travel Payments With Ixaris Acquisition

The payments platform Nium announced on Monday (June 7) that it would acquire the travel payments optimization platform Ixaris as part of a global expansion.

Ixaris offers funding and payment methods designed to help airlines and online travel agents reduce surcharges and earn rebates, serving more than 200 customers in 40-plus countries and issuing more than 10 million virtual cards in 2019.

Ixaris made a name for itself with the introduction of Europe’s first virtual prepaid credit card in 2019 and has processed transitions totaling £5 billion. The company’s 86 employees in London and Malta will become part of Nium, the company said in a news release.

“Airlines and OTAs are actively transforming their technologies and processes in anticipation of a surge in global travel happening this year,” said Prajit Nanu, co-founder and CEO, Nium. “The travel industry has long been dependent on slow-moving, monolithic payment platforms. Our acquisition will serve to replace these incumbents with a modern solution that combines Ixaris’ leading virtual card capability with Nium’s advanced pay-in, pay-out and embedded foreign exchange capabilities.”

Nium said the acquisition will help it “execute on its vision to provide API integration to access the world’s payments infrastructure.” The Nium platform lets customers in a range of sectors deploy financial services such as card issuance and cross-border payments. Nium operates in more than 40 markets and says it provides integrations in as little as four weeks.

“As part of the Nium family, we can offer the broadest portfolio of virtual card offerings to travel businesses across the globe,” said Mark Anthony Spiteri, Ixaris Group CEO. “All aspects of our company, from our technologies to our people, perfectly complement Nium, and we look forward to increasing our geographic footprint to new regions, including the United States.”

The transaction is expected to become final in the third quarter of 2021, pending customary closing conditions. For more on the benefits of pre-paid cards, read PYMNTS’ report from last year.