bwin.party subsidiary Kalixa acquires PXP Solutions

Online gambling group Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment has announced that its payment processing subsidiary, Kalixa, has acquired PXP Solutions, a well-established card payments company for an undisclosed consideration.

A Bwin.Party spokesman said the move is an important step in accelerating Bwin’s three-year plan to expand Kalixa and increase its proportion of revenues coming from outside the group.

“Integrating PXP will significantly grow the size of Kalixa’s payment processing volume and is expected to generate substantial revenue synergies in the areas of credit and debit card acquisition and issuance,” the spokesman said.

“With further strategic moves planned for later in the year, Kalixa is well on its way towards achieving the scale, breadth and customer reach that will ensure it can realise its potential.”

Kalixa originated as the in-house payments department of the Bwin Interactive group, and evolved into a separately managed company with its own brand, providing payment services to third-party merchants, consumers and corporate customers across Europe.

With a fully integrated payments platform, the Bwin.Party board believes that the company has the potential to become an increasingly valuable asset.

It has been calculated that the combined Kalixa and PXP businesses generated a transaction volume of Euro 10 billion in 2013.

The companies cover business across the three main segments of the payments market – issuing, acquiring and accepting – via any channel and any device using a single, integrated and advanced technology platform.

Both Kalixa and PXP Solutions will continue to operate under their existing brand names and address their respective segments of the payments market, the spokesman said.

Kalixa already provides a broad range of electronic payment solutions and products, including in-store and online merchant services, payment gateway connections and financial settlement, card issuing, e-wallet services and money transfer, together with value-added services such as fraud management, risk mitigation, chargeback handling and reconciliations. In 2013, Kalixa processed transactions for 300 merchants globally and 200,000 consumers worldwide use the Kalixa Pay prepaid e-wallet for physical and online purchases.

PXP’s in-store payments technology is used by 8,000 merchants and retailers in 27 countries worldwide. Its customers range from SMEs to leading consumer brands including Urban Outfitters, Burger King and SAGA. It processes 3.6 million transactions per month.

Bwin.Party chief executive Norbert Teufelberger, said Tuesday:

“Kalixa is on-course to become a significant player in the digital payments arena. Today’s acquisition provides excellent cross-selling opportunities for both Kalixa and PXP and has created a payments business with a balanced portfolio of customers, sectors, and geographies across Europe starting to enter the US and APAC.  We are working on a series of other strategic initiatives that we expect will further enhance the future prospects for Kalixa and its value to the Group.”

Ed Chandler, CEO at Kalixa, comented:

“Today’s announcement marks a major milestone in creating a world-class payments company with an unrivalled portfolio across the entire payments value chain. Kalixa and PXP together now have the scale and breadth of services to expand significantly in the global payments market. We are focused on introducing Kalixa Pro and Kalixa Pay services to PXP’s extensive portfolio of merchants across 27 countries and in the process diversify into new sectors such as retail, travel and leisure, and financial services.”

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