Prosus sells PayU to Israel’s Rapyd, but retains India, Turkey & SE Asia arms

Rapyd, Israel’s fintech-as-a-service startup, has acquired global investor and internet giant Prosus’ payment group PayU for $610 million. The Dutch-investment firm is selling its share in PayU’s Global Payment Organisation (GPO) arm, which includes nearly 30 countries, and will continue to hold on to operations in India, Turkey and Southeast Asia.

After letting go of its global arm, PayU will now focus on the “rapidly growing Indian payments and credit business,” Prosus said in a statement. It currently serves over 4,50,000 merchants and more than 2 million credit customers in the country under its subsidiary PayU India.

“PayU’s payments business is one of the largest, fastest growing and most profitable businesses in India among non-banking players, delivering 42% year on year growth in the last year alone. Overall, India’s digital financial services opportunity continues to be large and under-penetrated, offering healthy growth for the PayU India business,” said PayU chief executive Laurent le Moal.

Prosus’ payments and fintech segment saw strong growth in the previous fiscal, recording a consolidated revenue growth of 52% to $903 million in FY23. It is now betting big on India’s digital payments space, which saw rapid acceleration in the past few years.

PayU’s India business alone generated $399 million in revenue in FY23, as per the company’s consolidated financial statement for 2023, growing 31% year-over-year.

“Innovation and progressive regulation are driving rapid change within the digital payments industry in India, and we see many new opportunities to further expand our business there. As one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, we strongly believe in digital India and are excited about the next phase of growth for PayU in India,” said Bob van Dijk, Prosus and Naspers chief executive.