This year the financial services industry saw a lot of fintech M&A activity. Here are five deals, in no particular order, that Bank Innovation’s editors think will most significantly impact the landscape in 2019.
PayPal Acquires iZettle
Payments giant PayPal inked its largest deal ever this summer, acquiring Swedish company iZettle for $2.2 billion. iZettle is a small-business commerce platform company that helps SMBs accept and process payments. The news surprised the industry, since only weeks before being acquired Stockholm-based iZettle had announced plans for an IPO.
The acquisition is significant because it expands PayPal’s presence in Europe and Latin America. It also puts PayPal in direct competition with another big player in the commerce payments area, Square.
KeyBank Acquires SMB Lending Tool Bolstr
In June, KeyBank acquired Bolstr, which is an SMB-focused digital lending platform company, for an undisclosed amount.
The acquisition will enable KeyBank’s small business clients to streamline the process of applying for credit, according to a statement from Jamie Warder, Head of KeyBank Business Banking. The platform will also enable KeyBank to digitally accept and process loan applications significantly faster and at a lower cost, Warder said. With Bolstr, KeyBank will be able to fulfill plans to originate $2.5 billion in loans to SMB clients over the next five years, according to KeyBank’s National Community Benefits Plan on the bank’s website.
Finastra Acquires Malauzai
Finastra, a platform-as-a-service provider for banks, acquired Malauzai for an undisclosed amount in June. Based in Austin, Texas, Malauzai provides mobile and internet banking tools for community financial institutions. The acquisition will help the London-based Finastra increase its U.S. footprint, specifically among smaller FIs.
The combination of the two entities provides community banks and credit unions in the U.S. a fully integrated open core platform for payments and digital lending across Finastra’s 4,500-strong U.S.-based community market customers and Malauzai’s 350 community market institutions, according to Finastra CEO Simon Paris.
Temenos Acquires Avoka
Earlier this month, banking software provider Temenos acquired Avoka, a customer acquisition and onboarding platform company.
Avoka has more than 300 U.S. banking clients and the acquisition will bolster Switzerland-based Temenos’s American footprint product.
Circle Acquires Cryptocurrency Exchange Poloniex
Payments company Circle acquired cryptocurrency trading platform company Poloniex in February. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but Fortune reported that the value of the deal was around $400 million.
A peer-to-peer payments company, Circle started out focused on bitcoin, but then switched its emphasis to dollars in late 2016, directing its crypto customers to Coinbase. The acquisition of Poloniex brings it back to its roots. The Poloniex app is available on iOS and Android.






