Visa to acquire Brazilian fintech startup Pismo for $1B

Pismo is a cloud-native issuer processing and core banking platform

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On June 28, Visa announced it is acquiring Brazilian payments infrastructure startup Pismo for $1 billion in cash.

Here are a few key points:

• This deal is one of the biggest fintech mergers and acquisitions of the year thus far.

• Pismo, founded in 2016 and based in São Paulo, has gained major customers such as Citi, Itaú, Revolut, N26, Nubank, and Cora.

• The company offers a cloud-native issuer processing and core banking platform that provides “flexibility and agility” to banks, fintechs, and financial institutions. It enables the launch of various financial products, including cards, payments, digital banking, digital wallets, and marketplaces, while allowing institutions to manage their core data. It processes nearly 50 billion API calls and $40 billion in transaction volumes annually, serving about 80 million accounts and over 40 million issued cards.

• Pismo has expanded its operations beyond Brazil and now operates in other Latin American countries, the U.S., Europe, as well as having customers in India, Southeast Asia, and Australia.

• Visa's acquisition of Pismo could allow the company to offer core banking and issuer processing capabilities across different types of cards, including debit, prepaid, credit, and commercial cards, through cloud-native APIs. Additionally, Pismo's platform may enable Visa to support and connect with emerging payment systems like Pix in Brazil for its financial institution clients.

• The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close by the end of 2023.