Prosus Acquires India’s BillDesk For $4.7 Billion, To Merge It With Its PayU Business

Mumbai-based online payment gateway company BillDesk has been acquired by Prosus – the Dutch company that is the international Internet assets division of South African multinational Naspers. Prosus announced that it would purchase BillDesk for the sum of $4.7 billion about 24 hours ago.

The plan for BillDesk is that it will be merged with Prosus’ already thriving PayU. PayU is the company’s global fintech and payments business. PayU already has quite a strong presence in India and according to rumors, Prosus and BillDesk have been on the deal to purchase the latter since June of this year.

With BillDesk, Prosus plans on consolidating PayU’s presence in India, which is a very large market, and making it the biggest or at least one of the biggest payment providers in India and on a global scale. When completed, the Prosus-BillDesk deal will be one of Prosus’ biggest acquisitions. According to Prosus, it will provide its fintech holdings in India with a cumulative value of more than $10 million, which is part of a long-term strategy for both Prosus and its parent company Naspers. The same approach has been used in making other acquisitions in India.

Although both Prosus and BillDesk have agreed, the deal is still subject to the approval of Indian regulators. The Competition Commission of India will need to approve the deal before it can be concluded. The deal is expected to be concluded without any problems because apart from its payments business, both PayU and BillDesk offer other complementary businesses. BillDesk, for instance, is used by a handful of Indian banks and businesses across different industries. Prosus’ PayU, on the other hand, is available and currently serving more than twenty markets.

Speaking about the deal, Bob Van Dijk – Group CEO of Prosus, in a statement said mentioned that “payments and fintech is a core segment for Prosus and India remains our number one investment destination”.

 In a statement, Laurent Le Moal – the CEO of PayU said that “we believe this transaction will stimulate both innovation and competition within India’s digital payments industry. This will not only help to strengthen India’s digital economy, but also bring financial services to those who may have historically been excluded. This ambition is fully aligned with the Government of India’s vision of ‘Digital India’ and is a key objective for PayU across all the communities we serve globally”.

Prosus’ acquisition of BillDesk indicates that the company is trying to take over the Indian market and many other acquisitions are expected to happen as time unfolds.