EML heralds its flagship entry into open banking with the innovative Nuapay brand through the strategic acquisition of Sentenial Group

BRISBANE, Australia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--EML Payments’ (ASX:EML) (S&P/ASX 200) much-anticipated acquisition of Sentenial Limited and its wholly-owned subsidiaries ("Sentenial") has been approved by the French and U.K. financial regulators; L'Autorité de contrôle prudentiel et de résolution (ACPR) and the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). EML is acquiring Sentenial, including its open banking product suite, Nuapay, for an upfront enterprise value of €70 million (A$108.6 million), plus an earn-out component of up to €40 million (A$62.1 million).

The acquisition's finalisation repositions EML as a global leader in open banking and card payments and one of the largest fintech enablers.

Sentenial's open banking and account-2-account ("A2A") brand Nuapay will complement EML's digital product suite starting in Europe and the United Kingdom. Together, EML Nuapay will forge a frictionless payments revolution leveraging the open banking movement, empowering a better experience for end-users and better economics for clients. The EML product platform provides tailored payment solutions across a wide range of industry verticals. With the introduction of the Nuapay product suite, clients can take full advantage of the latest in payments innovation.

"We've been working with the Sentenial team for some months now on a go-to-market strategy encompassing sales, marketing, product and technology, and we’ll showcase all at our upcoming EMLCON4 event in November. Strategically, this is an important acquisition for us, continuing our transition over the last ten years from a gift card company, to a General Purpose Reloadable company, and now extending that again to include digital payments, open banking and account-2-account payments, giving us a unique set of capabilities in the European market. We're just as excited about welcoming the whole team from Sentenial into the EML family, and once travel opens up, getting over to meet them all in person," explained Tom Cregan, Managing Director & Group CEO at EML.

"Today’s milestone brings considerable investment into our further growth. We're delighted to bring these advantages to our partners and build upon our long-established reputation as their dependable first choice provider for open banking and account-2-account payments," said Sean Fitzgerald, Founder & CEO at Sentenial.

Industry Facts:

  • As the open data wave arrives, as much as $416 billion in revenue will be at stake – Accenture(1)
  • Instant payments will exceed $27.7 trillion in 2026, from just $4.8 trillion in 2021. Extraordinary growth of over 470% - Juniper Research(2)
  • The number of open banking users worldwide is expected to grow at an average annual rate of nearly 50% between 2020 and 2024, with the European market being the largest. In 2020, Europe counted approximately 12.2 million open banking users. This figure is expected to reach 63.8 million by 2024. As of 2020, 24.7 million individuals worldwide used open banking services, a number that is forecast to reach 132.2 million by 2024 – Statista(3)
  • In the U.K., the number of API calls made by Third Party Providers (TPPs) using Account Servicing Payment Service Providers' (ASPSP) open banking APIs increased from 1.9 million monthly calls as of June 2018 to 694.4 million successful monthly calls in December 2020 – Statista(4)
  • 839.9 million successful API calls made to account providers' (ASPSPs) Open Banking APIs in July 2021 - The Open Banking Implementation Entity (Open Banking Limited)(5)

Discover more about the Nuapay product suite by visiting EML's newly relaunched website: EMLPayments.com

Early registration for EMLCON4 has just opened at: EMLCONglobal.com

About EML Payments EML provides an innovative payment solutions platform, helping businesses all over the world create awesome customer experiences. Wherever money is in motion, our agile technology can power the payment process, so money can be moved quickly, conveniently and securely. We offer market-leading programme management and highly skilled payments expertise to create customisable feature-rich solutions for businesses, brands and their customers.

Come and explore the many opportunities our platform has to offer by visiting us at: EMLPayments.com

References:

  1. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insights/banking/open-banking-moving-towards-open-data-economy
  2. https://www.juniperresearch.com/researchstore/fintech-payments/instant-payments?utm_campaign=pr1_instantpayments_financial_fintech_aug21&utm_source=businesswire&utm_medium=pr
  3. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1228771/open-banking-users-worldwide/
  4. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1212259/successful-calls-made-by-tpps-using-account-providers-on-banking-apis-united-kingdom/
  5. https://www.openbanking.org.uk/

Contacts

Sarah Bowles, Group Chief Digital Officer EML Payments Limited (ASX:EML) sbowles@emlpayments.com +61 439 730 968

Marie O’Riordan, Global Director of Public Relations EML Payments Limited (ASX:EML) marie.oriordan@emlpayments.com / pr@emlpayments.com +44 207 183 5856 / +353 46 94 2010 9