American payment services giant Visa Inc. is acquiring Ripple partner Earthport Plc, a payment network for cross-border transactions, Reuters U.K. reported Dec. 27.
Founded in 1997, London-based Earthport is a financial services firm that offers cross-border payments service to banks and financial institutions. Earthport is a partner of tech company Ripple, where the partnership is aimed at integrating the Ripple protocol into the firm’s existing payment network to improve international transactions.
Per Reuters, the acquisition will be made for £198 million ($251 million), or 30 pence ($0.38) per each Earthport share, which exceeds the stock’s Monday closing price of 7.45 pence by over four times.
Earthport’s shares, which are listed on the London Stock Exchange’s secondary market, have reportedly slumped over 28 percent this year following growing losses and expenses. This reportedly made the company consider “fundamental” changes in its strategy.
In 2016, Earthport launched a single application programming interface (API) designed to connect banks to Ripple’s distributed ledger protocol when processing cross-border payments, according to financial and business news outlet Finextra. The development was reportedly set to enable banks to overcome budgetary, technology and compliance constraints.
Readmore:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/visa-to-purchase-ripple-cross-border-payments-partner-earthport
