Barclays Struggles to Sell Stake in UK Payments Unit
Hey Payment Fanatic,
Barclays is hitting roadblocks in selling a stake in its UK merchant payments business, mainly due to disagreements over valuation, according to sources. Brookfield Asset Management recently withdrew from bidding, largely due to Barclays’ pricing.
Complicating matters is the takeover of Takepayments, a Barclays partner, which may impact revenues. Some offers fell short because of the business’s shrinking market share and needed investment to revive growth.
Despite these hurdles, Barclays is still open to selling a stake. The process is tricky due to the technology and financial complexities involved, as noted by Barclays CEO C.S. Venkatakrishnan in June.
The bank is exploring options, including strategic partnerships, for its merchant acquiring business, and had previously written down its value by £300 million. This sale is part of a broader review of Barclays’ global payment activities, following the sale of its German consumer finance unit to BAWAG in July.
Cheers,
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INSIGHTS
🎙 Moving beyond payments to solve the evolving needs of SMBs with PayPal’s Michelle Gill. In this episode, Michelle Gill, EVP and General Manager, Small Business and Financial Services Group of PayPal, delves into the strategies that have positioned PayPal at the forefront of supporting small businesses. Tune in now!
PAYMENTS NEWS
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GOLDEN NUGGET
How do Payment Apps interact with Banks in India and China?
🇮🇳 UPI 🆚 NUCC 🇨🇳
The diagram below 👇 shows a comparison between UPI (Unified Payments Interface) in India and NUCC (NetsUnion Clearing Corporation) in China.
Both are nationwide efforts to streamline third-party payments, which means payment apps don’t need to handle the complexity of connecting to banks.
Some differences are:
► UPI = payment markup language + standard for interoperable payments, while NUCC (NetsUnion Clearing Corporation) is a clearing system among banks. So UPI covers the whole workflow, but NUCC handles transaction clearing and settlements.
► UPI builds a digital payments ecosystem with payment apps, banks, and NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India). NUCC saves each payment app the effort of connecting to each bank separately.
► UPI adopts a mobile-first design, each account is given a VPA (Virtual Payment Address), while NUCC doesn’t have such a setup.
Source: Hua Li
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