Global digital payment technology company Visa (NYSE:V) has announced the acquisition Brazilian fintech Pismo in a deal valued at $1 billion in cash, expanding Visa’s Latin American presence. This will allow Visa to provide core banking and issuer processing facilities through cloud-native applications.
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The acquisition news was initially disclosed in early June and is expected to be completed by year-end 2023. Pismo plans to retain its current management.
This marks the first major takeover by payment behemoth Visa since 2021, when it purchased European open banking platform Tink for $2.2 billion and British cross-border payments provider Currencycloud.
Pismo, which has operations in Latin America, the Asia-Pacific region and Europe provides cloud-based payment and banking platforms. Pismo boasts more than 70 million accounts with transactions of more than $200 billion annually.
Other Visa News
Yesterday, Visa signed a strategic partnership with Ryvyl’s (RVYL) Europe-based wholly-owned subsidiary, enabling Ryvyl’s EU customers to use Visa Direct, an account transfer solution.
Last week, Visa announced the appointment of a new CFO, Chris Suh, who is an industry veteran with 25 years of experience at Microsoft (MSFT).
Is Visa a Buy Right Now?
On a year-to-date basis, Visa stock price has gained 10.4% and is trading close to its 52-week high levels amid optimism about international travel spending, leading to higher quarterly results. Also, the company’s May cross-border volume highlighted significant growth (+17%).
All of the 11 top Wall Street Analysts covering Visa stock have assigned a Buy, with an average analyst price target set at $270.27 implying an 18.6% upside potential from current levels. Analysts are overwhelmingly positive on the stock, with the last two months seeing all Buy rating reaffirmations on the stock.
In mid-June, Robert W. Baird Analyst David Koning maintained his Buy rating on the stock with a $284 price target implying a 24.6% upside potential from current levels. The reaffirmation came in after it was known that Visa was in later-stage talks to acquire Pismo.
