Visa to Acquire Brazilian Fintech Platform Pismo for $1Bn

Payments giant Visa Inc (Visa) on Wednesday agreed to acquire Brazilian fintech platform Pismo for $1 billion in cash to expand its footprint in Latin America.

The Pismo deal is the largest fintech exit in Latin America since Nubank went public in late 2021 and the largest disclosed startup exit so far this year.

For Visa, the world's largest payments processor, it is its first major takeover since 2021 when it bought European open banking platform Tink for $2.2 billion as well as British cross-border payments provider Currencycloud.

Sao Paulo-based Pismo's cloud-based platform for financial institutions hosts more than 70 million accounts and transacts more than $200 billion a year, providing the technology through which clients can issue Visa and Mastercard (MA.N) cards.

Mastercard was reported earlier this year to have also been interested in the acquisition of the banking infrastructure startup. It did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

As part of the deal, which is expected to close by the end of the year, Pismo will retain its current management team, Visa said.

The seven-year-old company was founded by entrepreneurs Ricardo Josua, Daniela Binatti, Juliana Binatti and Marcelo Parise. It has operations in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, India and Latam.

Pismo raised $108 million in 2021 in Series B funding round​ led by Japan's SoftBank Group Corp, Amazon.com Inc. and global venture capital firm Accel, it said at the time.