Nuvei is buying Payoneer for $2.75bn, a bet that the way to take on Stripe is to own every step of a payment, not just one.
The Canadian firm will pay $7.40 a share in cash for Payoneer, the cross-border specialist listed on Nasdaq, in a deal both boards have approved. It ends Payoneer’s roughly five-year run as a public company.
Combined, the two say they will generate around $3bn in annual revenue, move more than $500bn a year, and serve over 2.4 million customers across 190-odd countries.
Two halves of a payment
The logic is that the companies barely overlap. Nuvei handles the merchant side, letting businesses accept cards and local payment methods. Payoneer handles the other end, paying out to freelancers, sellers and small firms, and is a fixture for people earning on Amazon, Etsy, Fiverr and Upwork.
