Visa Buys Ripple Partner CurrencyCloud in $900 Million Deal

Payments giant Visa has acquired Ripple partner CurrencyCloud in a deal that values the company at 700 million pounds, or about $930 million.

CurrencyCloud is a global platform that enables banks and fintechs to provide innovative foreign exchange solutions for cross-border payments.

According to the press release:

“The acquisition will empower Visa and Currencycloud clients and partners to provide greater transparency, flexibility and control for consumers and businesses when making international payments or doing business in multiple currencies.”

CurrencyCloud provides a wide range of APIs that allow banks and financial institutions to offer foreign exchange, virtual account management, and multi-currency wallet services to clients.

Visa says the acquisition will build on an existing partnership between the two firms.

“Currencycloud’s cloud-based platform already supports over 500 banking and technology clients with reach in over 180 countries and will continue to serve and support its customers and partners across the industry.”

In July, CurrencyCloud formed a partnership with Ripple in order to explore new mechanisms for efficiently moving money around the world, “especially where regulations and limitations restrict opportunities for SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises).

At the time, CurrencyCloud CEO Mike Laven said that Ripple’s solution would help the firm “extend our network to new parts of the world, removing more barriers to payments for our clients.”

CurrencyCloud also said that RippleNet, Ripple’s global payments network, “makes it easy for its diverse network of financial institutions worldwide to enable faster, lower-cost payments around the world.” It’s unclear whether or not Ripplenet has any relevancy to CurrencyCloud’s services now that it has been acquired by Visa.