Neteller And Skrill To Come Together

Published: March 25, 2015

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Optimal Payments Plc has announced an agreement to acquire Skrill Group from CVC Funds and other shareholders. The deal has been valued at approximately €1.1 billion. Optimal Payments is a global provider of online and mobile payment processing services. It owns the brand Neteller. This acquisition, which is subject to the satisfaction of a number of conditions including Optimal Payments’ shareholder and regulatory approvals, will put the two biggest e-wallets processing online casino payments under one roof.

The Skrill Group has a large customer base in Europe, cultivated from its Moneybookers days. Apart from the Skrill brand e-wallet the company owns the paysafecard brand, which is one of the largest prepaid online voucher providers in Europe. The Directors of Optimal Payments believe that the acquisition will enhance the value for the company by creating a leading payment and e-wallet provider with significant international reach. It has not gone unnoticed that the online gambling sector is set for rapid growth, particularly with more and more American states looking to legalize and regulate the activity. This acquisition will allow Optimal Payments to cash in on this growth.

Joel Leonoff, President and CEO of Optimal Payments, said that the last four years have seen significant growth in revenues and earnings mainly through high levels of organic growth. These have been supplemented a bit with accretive acquisitions. But the acquisition of Skrill will represent a transformational leap forward by creating a global tech champion in the fast growing digital payments space. He added that his management team was extremely excited about the results that will accrue from this acquisition.

Leonoff referred to the coming together of Optimal Payments (with Neteller) and Skrill as the “Enlarged Group”. The Enlarged Group will have significantly enhanced economies of scale and will lead the market in the online payments processing sectors. It will offer more than 100 payment types in more than 22 languages and in 41 currencies. This will mean increased geographic diversification and increased merchant diversification, though online gambling sites will dominate the broad customer base. The Enlarged Group will continue to have ties with Visa and MasterCard and thus provide a complete end to end payment solution for users and merchants. The prepaid online payment solutions segment will be strengthened with the addition of paysafecard. The already strong management team of Optimal Payments, with collectively over 140 years of experience in international payment processing, will be augmented by the Skrill management team.

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