PayU to acquire BillDesk in over `35,300-cr deal

„Deal takes Prosus NV’s India investment above $10 bn

In one of the largest deals in the payment space, global player Prosus NV on Tuesday said its fintech business PayU will acquire online payments service BillDesk for $4.7 billion (about Rs 34,376.20 crore). This is among Prosus NV’s largest global acquisitions.

With the deal, the Netherlands-incorporated Prosus NV’s investment in India will jump to more than $ 10 billion.

The PayU-BillDesk transaction, subject to approval from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), is expected to close by early 2022, Prosus Group CEO Bob van Dijk told reporters during a briefing.

“We’ve invested close to

$6 billion in Indian tech to date, and this deal will see that increase to more than

$10 billion,” Dijk said. In the past, PayU India had snapped up payments technology company CitrusPay in 2016 for $160 million. It then acquired digital credit platform Paysense in 2020 for $185 million. Prosus has also invested in companies like Byju’s, Meesho, Swiggy, Urban Company and others in India.

According to RBI’s FY21 annual report, the number of transactions for digital retail payments has grown by more than 80 per cent from 24 billion in 2018-19 to

44 billion to 2020-21.

Over the next three years, the RBI expects more than

200 million new users to adopt digital payments with the average annual transactions per capita rising ten-fold from 22 to 220.

PayU India and BillDesk run similar businesses within the digital payment industry. Together, the two expect to create a financial ecosystem handling four billion transactions annually—four times PayU’s current level in India.

For the financial year to March 2021, PayU reported a strong performance, increasing total payment volume (TPV) by 51 per cent year-on-year to $55 billion across India, Latin America and EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa). The acquisition will help PayU become one of the leading online payment providers globally, handling TPV of $147 billion.

BillDesk, founded in 2000, is backed by investors like General Atlantic, Visa, TA Associates and Temasek.