Alibaba Will Buy Interswitch Soon - Prediction
Finally, it happened - Alibaba has bought WorldFirst, the UK firm.
Ant Financial, the financial services behemoth affiliated with Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has made its first big move into Europe. It’s acquired London-headquartered payments company WorldFirst in a deal that sources tell us is valued at around $700 million.
I had noted that Alibaba will acquire Nigeria's Interswitch, mentioning WordFirst in the piece.
Interswitch Verve is a solid product and can be scaled all over Africa; Interswitch missed the opportunity as I explained in the monopoly hangover piece. No other sub-Saharan African company has that type of product. So, it is natural that Ant Financial will come for it. Another company to watch is WorldRemit which does remittance; Ant Financial may also decide to pick it if the WorldFirst deal fails.