Pine Labs, an Indian merchant platform is looking to buy Asia business of bankrupt Germany based payments company Wirecard. A month ago, the company filed bankruptcy post missing of $2 billion from its balance sheet in an alleged accountancy fraud. “Multiple other players have also expressed interest in the company’s assets in the region. The legality of the matter still has to be seen,” a source aware of the development said.
Others in the business including Hitachi Payments and Atos-backed Wordline Technology are also eyeing to take over of Wirecards. “We continue to expand our footprints. We wouldn’t like to comment on this topic,” Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs said. Hitachi and Wordline declined of any such news.
According to a news report, Wirecard’s multiple businesses are up for sale including its America unit. The Singapore-based Wirecard’s Asia business services about 20,000 merchants in India, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Australia and Malaysia, among others, according to the company.
The ongoing investigation can cost the company a lot of its customers specially in its India business before a buyout is finalized with a local company. “The discussion is still in very early stages and it’s obviously challenging as there is an ongoing litigation against the company,” said one of the sources cited earlier in the story. “There is also concern that Wirecard may lose customers during any process of migration due to these proceedings.”
Pine Labs has previously worked with Wirecard for its India business. Apart from its payment deployment business in India, Pine Labs also has a strong presence in the merchant’s payment space in Malaysia and Singapore.