JPMorgan agrees to accumulate 49% stake in Greek fintech Viva Pockets

An indication exterior JP Morgan Chase & Co. places of work is seen in New York Metropolis, U.S., March 29, 2021. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

ATHENS, Jan 25 (Reuters) – JPMorgan (JPM.N) stated on Tuesday it had agreed to accumulate an round 49% stake in Athens-based funds fintech Viva Pockets, topic to regulatory approvals.

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Monetary phrases of the transaction weren’t disclosed, however sources near the deal instructed Reuters Viva Pockets was valued at greater than $2.0 billion.

JPMorgan’s funding will prime $1.15 billion, together with a capital enhance in Viva Pockets which is not going to dilute its founders’ majority stake of 51.5%, stated the sources, who declined to be named.

Cloud-based Viva Pockets, which operates in 23 nations throughout Europe, gives card acceptance companies via its POS utility, add-on Google play gadgets and superior cost techniques in on-line shops.

“We’re very excited to make a strategic funding in Viva Pockets to assist their imaginative and prescient to empower new development and funds innovation focused at European small and midsize companies,” JPMorgan’s head of worldwide funds Takis Georgakopoulos stated in a press release.

He stated the European funds sector is giant when it comes to alternative, with greater than 17 million retailers able to implement funds techniques that may be rapidly ramped up.

The stake might be acquired from Viva Pockets’s minority shareholders, together with the Latsis household workplace, which holds about 13% of the agency, and British fund Hedosophia, with about 24%.

In 2020 Viva Pockets purchased Greece’s first digital challenger Praxia Financial institution, which was owned by former Barclays boss Bob Diamond and fellow Atlas Service provider Capital associate David Schamis, buying a banking licence.

In the identical yr it launched Apple Pay and Google Pay in 18 nations, providing purchasers digital enterprise debit playing cards.

“Viva Pockets’s mission is to alter the best way companies pay and receives a commission in Europe with innovative know-how,” stated Chief Government Haris Karonis, co-founder of Viva Pockets.

Jefferies was Viva Pockets’s sole monetary adviser on the deal, with Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP the authorized adviser.

Reporting by George Georgiopoulos; Modifying by Jan Harvey

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