Paths Merge as Voyager Digital and Square each Complete Strategic Acquisitions

The landscape of surrounding financial technologies (FinTech) continues to become clearer, as companies join forces through a steady stream of acquisitions and mergers.  Recent days have highlighted this with various examples along the way.

Voyager Digital Acquires Coinify

Publicly traded Voyager Digital, has officially acquired crypto platform Coinify ApS.  This move – which comes in at $84 million USD – will allow for Voyager to take advantage of Coinify’s existing infrastructure and user base, and expand into Europe, Asia, and the Americas.

This expansion will specifically benefit Voyager’s crypto based operations, as it gains the ability to allow for customers to ‘make payments directly directly from their digital asset accounts’

“As the adoption of cryptocurrency payments gains momentum, the acquisition of Coinify brings a global payment infrastructure to Voyager's digital asset ecosystem and will give our rapidly growing customer base of over 1.75 million users a fast, easy, and secure way to make payments from their Voyager accounts,” – Stephen Ehrlich, CEO of Voyager.

This is not the first time Voyager has expanded the role of crypto within its operations through an acquisition.  The company acquired and rebranded the Ethos blockchain and its associated tokens in 2020.

Square acquires Afterpay

In a deal worth $29 million USD, Square is officially set to acquire Afterpay.  In doing so, Square will gain immediate access to a well-positioned, and flexible platform which offers services such as ‘buy now, pay later’.  This capability is to soon be integrated throughout Square's existing Cash App product suite.  Square believes that this move, “Brings together two of the fastest growing global fintech companies to advance shared mission of economic empowerment and financial inclusion”

Through its integration, not only will the existing customer base of the Cash App benefit, but so too will that of Afterpay.  Square states that, “Afterpay consumers will receive the benefits of Cash App’s financial tools, including money transfer, stock and Bitcoin purchases, Cash Boost, and more.”  This plays right in to the three key reasons that Square indicates it acquired Afterpay.

• Enhance both the Seller and Cash App ecosystems
• Bring added value, differentiation, and scale to Afterpay
• Drive long-term growth with meaningful revenue synergy opportunities

For those wondering where Square’s source of infatuation towards Bitcoin comes from, look no further than its most recent Q2 earnings.  Boasting a 200% increase in Bitcoin based revenue over the same time period from 2020, Square was able to turn this in to $55 million in gross profit.

Steller Developmental Foundation MoneyGram

While the previously described acquisitions are essentially done-deals, this one is currently more speculative in nature.  Based on a recent report by Bloomberg, it is believed that payment processer, MoneyGram, is in talks with the Steller Developmental Foundation (SDF) for a potential acquisition.

Despite the uncertainty surrounding this potential deal, markets appeared to respond favourably, with MoneyGram shares spiking shortly after the rumours began.

Notably, MoneyGram has been linked to talks of acquisition for years now, dating back to early 2018.  At that time, the U.S. government put the kibosh on an acquisition of MoneyGram by Ant Financial.  This intervention occurred with the government citing national security concerns.  It is believed that this deal would have been valued at roughly $1.2 billion at the time.