FIS buys Worldpay (2019)
Financial technology firm FIS agreed to buy payment processor Worldpay for about $43 billion, one of the largest payments mergers ever. The wave of deals that year reshaped who controls global payment rails.
FIS gained scale in merchant acceptance and online commerce.
By 2023 FIS sold a majority of Worldpay to private equity at a far lower value, showing how hard these combinations are to make work.
It is a caution: payments megadeals promise scale, but integrating acceptance and money movement often proves harder and worth less than the press release suggests.
