Visa Inc has concluded plans to acquire a “significant minority” stake in payments platform Interswitch, the Nigeria-based company said on Tuesday.
However, Interswitch did not provide the financial details of the deal in its statement.
The acquisition, which was first reported on Sunday as being a 20 percent stake for $200 million, would give the company a valuation of $1billion — putting it in the tech-world “unicorn” status for companies that have a billion-dollar valuation.
Interswitch is a payment processing company with headquarter in Lagos.
The company uses a “switching” infrastructure to connect the different banks in Nigeria and provides technology for Automated Teller Machine (ATM) cards.
It has over 11,000 ATMs on its network.
Interswitch is the owner of Verve, Nigeria’s most used payment card, accounting for 18 million of the 25 million cards in circulation in the country.
Verve has also been launched in Kenya. (NAN)
