IBM strengthens its position in payment by acquiring Expertus Technologies
FACTS
- The end of 2020 was highlighted by the acquisition of Expertus Technologies, a Canadian FinTech specializing in digital financial services and cloud-based payment solutions.
- It was acquired by the giant IBM to strengthen its offer dedicated to financial institutions.
- Expertus' payment and cash management solutions enable the modernization of payment transactions, such as real-time cross-border payment processing. In addition, Expertus is one of SWIFT's leading North American services bureaus.
- Here, the IT giant intends to complement its IA and Cloud offerings with payment by becoming able to offer more innovative and flexible end-to-end digital payment solutions.
- Expertus Technology currently processes $50 billion of transactions per day, now under the IT giant's control. Expertus offers its platform to more than 1,000 corporate customers, including banks.
CHALLENGES
- Enrich its hybrid cloud offer for banks, in order to strengthen its position, particularly in payment. Through its Services Business Unit, IBM is targeting banks and financial institutions with an offer called IBM Cloud for financial services. A solution that enables it to support banks in their digital transformation. The acquisition of Expertus reinforces this expertise in a high value-added business for banks, that is payment, where their presence is strongly challenged by leading players such as PayPal or Square.
MARKET PERSPECTIVE
- IBM has already a strong presence in the banking sector by deploying its Artificial Intelligence technologies to democratize virtual assistants.
- But also and above, IBM provides its cloud technologies. For the past two years, banks have been accompanying their digital transformation by adopting hybrid cloud solutions like the one IBM offers. This is the case, for example, of BNP Paribas and Banco Sabadell, but also Santander. Deutsche Bank, for its part, adopted Google's solution.
- IBM has also penetrated the Blockchain market. It signed a partnership with ANZ, Commonwealth Bank and Westpac, the three main Australian banks, as well as Scentre Group shopping centers, to carry out a project to implement Blockchain technology in July 2019. More recently, IBM also acquired a 7% stake in We.Trade (formerly Digital Trade Chain).