South African financial services giant Standard Bank has taken a majority stake in regional mobile payments player Firepay.
The financial terms of the deal are undisclosed.
The two companies first partnered in 2014 to develop and launch QR code-based mobile payments service SnapScan.
Standard Bank will now take a controlling stake in its three-year old partner.
The bank’s head of cards and payments Lincoln Mali said the deal is a testament to Standard Bank’s “commitment to innovation and working with industry leading fintechs to bring relevant solutions to customers”.
Standard Bank intends to keep Firepay’s existing management and continue to operate the company as usual.
This includes keeping its service open to customers of all banks.
SnapScan allows merchants to sign up online and receive a QR code that they can then print out and place at the point of sale.
Customers can then scan the code with the SnapScan app and enter the amount to pay plus a four-digit PIN to complete the transaction.
The service claims to have signed up 30,000 merchants and hundreds of thousands of customers.
Copyright © 2016 FINTECH GLOBAL
Copyright © 2018 RegTech Analyst
