London-based payments platform Paysafe signed a deal to acquire Latin American digital payments firm SafetyPay for US$ 441 million in an all-cash transaction that is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Paysafe said in a statement that the two acquisitions sets it up to be the leading open banking and digital payments solutions provider in Latin America, one of the world’s fastest-growing online markets”.

It currently offers over 70 payment types in over 40 currencies around the world.

Furthermore, with SafetyPay having established relationships with more banks in Latin America, Paysafe will be uniquely positioned to capture share of the nascent open banking market by integrating its services and solutions further into the region’s payments ecosystem including its digital wallet and gateway capabilities.

On completion of the deal, the SafetyPay team will transition into Paysafe’s expanding eCash and online banking solutions’ team which is headed up by Paysafe eCash CEO, Udo Mueller.

SafetyPay’s CEO, Gustavo Ruiz Moya, will become CEO, e-cash for Latin America and Global Head of Open Banking, reporting into Mueller.

The merged entities will be able to offer e-cash and open banking solutions in over 60 countries with over one million distribution points.

For Paysafe, this latest deal strengthens its strategic foothold in Latin America, building on its recently announced acquisition agreement with Peruvian payments platform, PagoEfectivo.

SafetyPay was founded in 2007 as an e-commerce payments platform with the mission to enable millions of consumers to use alternative payment methods (APMs), most notably bank transfer and e-cash solutions, to make online purchases.

It now has a presence in 11 Latin American countries with additional coverage in Europe and has over 90 percent bank coverage, and over 180,000 cash collection points.

It serves nearly 300 merchants primarily in the travel, entertainment, and digital goods industries.

“We are very excited to welcome SafetyPay into the Paysafe family. The team has successfully built a market-leading payment platform that has become the de facto open banking solution for Latin America. We look forward to partnering with Gustavo and the team to continue to build eCash and online banking solutions across LATAM and beyond.”

said Philip McHugh, CEO of Paysafe.