PayU to offload payments business for R11-billion

August 1, 2023 Siyabonga Mtangana

Prosus and Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk

PayU, the online payments specialist owned by Naspers subsidiary Prosus, has announced it will sell its Global Payments Organisation (GPO) business for US$610-million (R10.9-billion).

The transaction excludes PayU’s Indian, Turkish and Southeast Asian businesses. This will allow PayU, as India’s leading payments provider, to focus on the opportunities available in the most populous country in the world (it recently overtook China).

“We are now fully focused on the huge fintech opportunity in India, where PayU is the leading payments service provider and is rapidly expanding its credit offering.

“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 there,” said Prosus and Naspers CEO Bob van Dijk in a statement.

Prosus aims to use the revenue from the transaction to “reshape” its e-commerce portfolio and “focus investments on the markets with the highest growth potential”.

PayU in India

PayU serves more the 450 000 merchants and two million credit customers in India.

The deal will help Rapyd expand its reach in Central and Eastern Europe as well as Latin America and bolster its capabilities with access to underlying licensing and payment processing infrastructure.