Santander Group announced on Monday it has entered into an agreement to acquire merchant payment solutions company Elavon México. Santander reported that it will be acquiring Elavon México for a total of 1,600 million (approximately USD 86 million and EUR 79 million) and Elavon México will be 49% owned by Santander Mexico and 51% by Santander Merchant Platform Solutions (SMPS), which belongs to Santander Group.
Santander reported that in April 2019 it announced plans to accelerate its growth in various global payment initiatives, including the creation of a global merchant acquiring business, building on the success of its Brazilian subsidiary, Getnet, in a business line with high growth potential. With the agreement, Mexico is becoming the first country in which Santander has acquired a business to accelerate its growth and development.
“Elavon México operates Banco Santander’s merchant acquiring business in Mexico, a relationship which dates back to 2010. It performed extremely well and built a strong team that will now form part of Banco Santander México. The alliance ranks second in the Mexican merchant services market, with around 140,000 active customers (16% market share) and 250,000 card payment terminals as of December 2019. Additionally, 2019 exceeded 419 million transactions (23% more than 2018), that is, number of sales in physical and digital stores.”
While sharing more details about the acquisition, Héctor Grisi Checa, Executive Chairman of Banco Santander Mexico, stated:
“I am delighted with this agreement to acquire Elavon México together with Santander Merchant Platform Solutions, Santander Group’s new global merchant acquiring platform. We see excellent opportunities to continue developing the business, improve the value proposition for our customers and take advantage of economies of scale as other Santander markets connect to the platform.”
Javier San Félix, head of Santander Global Payments Services at Santander Group, added:
“The acquisition of Elavon México is an important step in the creation of a global merchant services business, which will provide added value to our customers. It will also enable us to unlock value in our Getnet merchant acquiring business and gradually extend our strengths to all our markets and customers through a single platform, open to third-party services. Mexico is the first of our markets to connect to the new platform, with the rest to follow in the near future.”