Transaction processing firm Paymark sold

Wednesday, 17 January 2018

Banks first flagged the possibility of a sale in 2016.

ANZ, ASB, BNZ and Westpac have sold their jointly-owned electronic payments processing company, Paymark.

They have agreed to sell the company to Ingenico Group for $190 million.

Paymark processes a high proportion of New Zealand's debit and credit card transactions through its switching infrastructure, which connects a customer's card with their bank.

The banks first announced a review of their ownership of the firm in 2016.

Ingenico is listed on the Paris stock exchange and operates payments companies in 170 countries.

Its payment terminals are used in New Zealand.

The agreement is conditional on approval from the Commerce Commission and Overseas Investment Office.

The four banks each have a 25 per cent shareholding.

In a statement, they said they believed Ingenico would be a good owner for Paymark because it was a specialist in payments and would be able to bring a high degree of technical skill and innovation to what was becoming an increasingly complex and creative industry.

Banking expert Claire Matthews said banks might have been driven to sell by the challenge of owning something together when they were in competition.

'It's probably also about wanting to focus on their core business, seeing Paymark as a better provider of services to them - or not as the case may be. [Selling] gives them flexibility of choosing who that provider is.'

She said it was also possible that the system required investment in new technology, or an upgrade, and the banks had decided another owner was better placed to do that. 'But that's purely speculation.'

Matthews said customers should not notice any significant difference.