The payments sector is experiencing a significant transformation as Global Payments has announced a $22.7 billion agreement to acquire Worldpay from GTRC and FIS, while simultaneously divesting its Issuer Solutions business to FIS for $13.5 billion.
Global Payments emphasizes that Worldpay offers highly complementary payments, software, and commerce enablement technologies to merchants and partners around the globe. Once combined, the new entity will serve over six million customers and facilitate roughly 94 billion transactions, amounting to $3.7 trillion in volume across more than 175 countries.
By offloading the Issuer Solutions business, Global Payments aims to streamline its operations and concentrate on its role as a leading pure-play merchant solutions provider. Cameron Bready, CEO of Global Payments, remarked, “The acquisition of Worldpay and divestiture of Issuer Solutions sharpen our strategic focus, enabling us to operate as a pure-play merchant solutions business with enhanced capabilities, extensive scale, greater market access, and a stronger financial profile.”
This agreement comes two years after FIS sold a 45% stake in Worldpay to private equity firms managed by GTRC at an $18.5 billion valuation. FIS will realize a pre-tax value of $6.6 billion from its stake in Worldpay and will pay Global Payments a net purchase price of $12 billion, along with $1.5 billion in anticipated net present value of tax assets related to Issuer Solutions.
FIS asserts that the Issuer Solutions business will enhance its product suite in areas like credit processing, fraud detection, loyalty programs, and other value-added services, complementing its existing offerings in debit processing, network services, and payments processing. “The acquisition of Issuer Solutions is a strategic and accretive transaction that will expand FIS’s payment product suite and deepen our relationships with financial institutions and corporate clients,” stated Stephanie Ferris, CEO of FIS.
The completion of these transactions is expected in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approval.