Santander will invest 50 million pounds (67.4 million dollars) in its international payments fintech Ebury as part of funding rounds totaling 550 million pounds, the Spanish banking giant announced on Thursday.
The funding rounds are being led by a group comprising Centerbridge Partners, alongside existing shareholders Santander, Vitruvian Partners, and 83North. The Spanish bank will remain Ebury’s majority shareholder with a 55% stake, according to the statement.
The rounds will be executed across two separate transactions, with the proceeds earmarked to accelerate growth, focusing on ‘scaling the business and enhancing artificial intelligence capabilities to optimize payment processing.’
The financing is expected to generate approximately 4 basis points of Common Equity Tier 1 capital at the group level and is slated for completion no later than the first quarter of 2027.
In March, Sky News reported that Centerbridge was eyeing a stake in Ebury after the payments firm paused its London initial public offering.
(1 dollar = 0.7416 pounds)
(Reporting by João Manuel Maurício in Gdansk; editing by Jesús Aguado and Andrei Khalip; Spanish editing by Paula Villalba)