Santander Group acquires Elavon Mexico

Santander Group, the multinational bank and financial services company has acquired Elavon Mexico, a merchant payments company and a subsidiary of U.S Bancorp for $86 million. The company after the acquisition will be 49% owned by Santander Mexico and 51% by Santander Merchant Platform Solutions (SMPS), which belongs to Santander Group.

In April 2019, the Santander Group had announced a strategy in which the company seeks growth in global payments, including the creation of a global merchant acquiring business and with this acquisition, Mexico becomes the first country in which Santander group has acquired a firm to accelerate this strategy.

Elavon Mexico works as a partner with Banco Santander Mexico and currently have 140,000 active customers which are 16% of the total market in Mexico. The group has more than 250,000 card payment terminals as of December 2019.

“The acquisition of Elavon México is an important step in the creation of a global merchant services business, which will provide added value to our customers. It will also enable us to unlock value in our Getnet merchant acquiring business and gradually extend our strengths to all our markets and customers through a single platform, open to third-party services. Mexico is the first of our markets to connect to the new platform, with the rest to follow in the near future,” said the head of Santander Global Payments Services at Santander Group Javier San Félix.

The transaction, which is expected to close in the next few weeks, is subject to regulatory approval and does not change or impact other Elavon operations.