ACI to Western Union’s US domestic bill pay business Speedpay for $750m

ACI acquisition of Speedpay : Payment systems company ACI Worldwide has signed a $750 million all-cash deal to acquire the US domestic bill pay business of Western Union, which operates under the brand Speedpay.

Speedpay offers electronic bill presentment and payment solutions to various business sectors in the US. Its clients include utilities, telecommunications, insurance, auto finance, mortgage, and government finance.

The domestic bill pay business provides payments processing services to assist the businesses in receiving payments from their customers.

ACI acquisition of Speedpay

Hikmet Ersek – president and CEO of Western Union, commenting on ACI acquisition of Speedpay, said: “Divesting the Speedpay business allows us to concentrate our resources on our cross-border money movement strategies and monetize a non-core asset for our shareholders. Our strategy remains focused on expanding our digital services, leveraging our platform to unlock new cross-border, cross-currency payments opportunities, and generating additional operating efficiencies.”

“We are also pleased to announce a new share repurchase authorization, which signifies our continued commitment to shareholder-focused capital allocation.”

ACI acquisition of Speedpay. Photo courtesy of John Phelan/Wikipedia.org.

ACI acquisition of Speedpay will enable the combination to serve more than 4,000 customers nationwide, bringing expanded reach in existing and complementary areas such as consumer finance, healthcare, insurance, utilities, government, higher education, and mortgage. The combined business is expected to more effectively serve a rapidly-evolving category as well as pursue further vertical segments, said ACI.

The payment systems company is expecting the transaction to help it increase the scale of its On Demand platform business and accelerate platform innovation by means of increased R&D spend and investments on the platform infrastructure.

ACI will combine Speedpay and UP Bill payment systems into a unified bill payment system that will support billions of transactions.

Commenting on ACI acquisition of Speedpay, Phil Heasley – president and CEO of ACI said: “This acquisition reinforces ACI’s “any payment, every possibility” vision and accelerates our ability to capitalize on the growing global payment transaction opportunity over the next five years. It presents a great opportunity for ACI to strengthen and add scale to our On Demand business, and provides fuel for growth and increased R&D investment which will benefit both ACI and Speedpay customers.”

ACI acquisition of Speedpay is expected to be wrapped up by the end of Q2, 2019, once the customary closing conditions are met and regulatory approvals are received.