Mexico Payments Firm Prosa Shops For Buyer, Seeks $1 Billion

With Latin America a hot market for the expansion of digital payments, Mexico’s Prosa is looking for a buyer that will pony up more than $1 billion, Reuters reported. Sources said that the sales process is attracting interest from a number of large payments and financial technology (FinTech) companies.

Prosa operates a payments processor that processes 4.7 billion transactions annually in Mexico and Latin America, comprising more than half the transactions in that area. It handles America Express, Visa and Mastercard business. According to the company’s website, it is one of the 10 largest transaction processors in the world. Prosa is owned by a number of banks, including Grupo Financiero Banorte and the local arms of HSBC and Banco Santander.

Reuters noted that an investment bank is in charge of shopping Prosa around. Sources spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential matters. Prosa did not respond to requests for comment. It is unclear when or if a deal may happen.

Latin American companies that process digital payments have increasingly attracted interest from investors — both private and public. Reuters said this interest has been spurred by the expanding market and a young, tech-savvy population.

On Wednesday (June 2), Uruguay-based DLocal, a technology payments platform, announced that it had priced its initial public offering (IPO) at $21 per share. Shares were expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Thursday (June 3).

In addition, Visa last year bought payments startup YellowPepper, which operates in nine Latin American countries.

Increasingly, the digital revolution is sweeping Latin America, and investors are taking notice. Last July, for example, a PYMNTS report concluded that “wider acceptance of open banking rules and strategies is occurring in Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Mexico, and venture capital investment interest is following, even as many of the region’s merchants are assessing the pandemic’s negative financial impacts.”

The report added: “Open banking initiatives have rapidly made inroads in Latin America, where countries like Mexico are upgrading rules” that had been newly implemented in Europe.