PayU is a

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

-based

payment service provider A payment service provider (PSP) is a third-party company that allows businesses to accept electronic payments, such as credit card and debit card payments. PSPs act as intermediaries between those who make payments, i.e. consumers, and those who ...

to online merchants. The company was founded in 2002, and is headquartered in

Hoofddorp Hoofddorp (; ) is the main town of the municipality of Haarlemmermeer, in the province of North Holland, the Netherlands. In 2021, the population was 77,885. The town was founded in 1853, immediately after the Haarlemmermeer had been drained. Hi ...

. It allows online businesses to accept and process payments through payment methods that can be integrated with web and mobile applications. As of 2018, the service is available in 17 countries. The firm is owned by the Naspers Group, which also owns a stake in one of its sister companies,

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

History

PayU is the result of multiple payment gateways in various regions of the world that have been acquired and brought into the PayU group. In 2014, all

online payment An e-commerce payment system (or an electronic payment system) facilitates the acceptance of electronic payment for offline transfer, also known as a subcomponent of electronic data interchange (EDI), e-commerce payment systems have become increa ...

companies that were part of

Naspers Naspers Limited (until 1998 Die Nasionale Pers) is a South African multinational internet, technology and multimedia holding company headquartered in Cape Town. The company has interests in online retail, publishing, real estate, and ventu ...

started operating under the PayU brand. In 2022, it fired about 150 employees, approximately 6% of its workforce. In 2023, PayU sold its global payments business, other than those in its core markets of

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...

and

Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...

, to Rapyd for $610 million.

Investment and acquisitions

* Acquired Zooz, an Israeli startup that provides an API to merchants. *Acquired Indian payments services provider, Citrus Pay in September 2016 for $130M. *Investment of €110M in German fintech company Kreditech, which provides machine-learning-based underwriting. *PayU led a $115M

funding round A securities offering (or funding round or investment round) is a discrete round of investment, by which a business or other enterprise raises money to fund operations, expansion, a capital (economics), capital project, an acquisition, or some oth ...

of Seattle-based

Remitly Remitly is an American online remittance service based in Seattle, United States that offers international money transfers to over 170 countries. It was founded in 2011 by Matthew Oppenheimer, Josh Hug, and Shivaas Gulati and became publicly trad ...

, a remittance company. *

Series A A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

investment of $3.7M in ZestMoney, a provider of consumer finance for online purchases. *Invested $5.3M in Indian fintech startup PaySense in May 2017 *Investment of R$60M in online credit platform Creditas (ex-BankFacil) *2011, acquired Romanian online payments company GECAD ePayments *2019, acquired US-based digital financial security firm Wibmo for $70M *2019, acquired Turkish digital payments company Iyzico for $165M *2020, acquired Indian fintech startup PaySense for $185M *2025, PayU acquires 43.5% stake in Mumbai-based Mindgate Solutions.

Operations

Europe

In November 2006, PayU SA was established and the Polish firm Platnosci.pl was merged into the group. The company also has a partnership with Iwoca to make financing for SME firms easier. In 2010, the company expanded to the Czech Republic. In 2011, the company expanded to Romania. In 2012, it began its operations in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

Slovakia Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's m ...

and

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

Latin America

In 2002, Pagosonline was founded in

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

by Jose Velez, Martin Schrimpff and Santiago Spinel. In 2010, PagosOnline sold a majority stake to Buscapé, which was a part of the Naspers Group. In 2011, Naspers acquired the majority stake in DineroMail. In 2013, Naspers acquired the rest of the shares of DineroMail. In 2012, Naspers acquired Pagosonline, replacing the former two with a new payment platform that eventually was rebranded PayU Latam, which begun operations in Panama and Peru. During the course of 2013 and 2014, PayU Latam and DineroMail merged. In 2016, Bcash and PayU, were merged under the PayU brand in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

Africa

PayJar was founded in South Africa in 2010, as part of the Naspers group to help other Naspers companies process online payments. In 2011, PayJar was rebranded to PayU. In 2015, PayU expanded its operations to

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

India

In 2011,

Ibibo Ibibo Group is an online Indian travel organisation founded in January 2007 by Ashish Kashyap. The company is a subsidiary of MakeMyTrip (MMT) Limited, which owns a 100% stake in Ibibo Group. The group owns the B2C online travel aggregator G ...

in conjunction with co-founders Nitin Gupta and Shailaz Nag, rolled out a payment gateway, PayU, in the Indian market to permit websites to integrate e-commerce transactions through online payments.

Products and services

PayU is a regulated

financial institution A financial institution, sometimes called a banking institution, is a business entity that provides service as an intermediary for different types of financial monetary transactions. Broadly speaking, there are three major types of financial ins ...

. It holds licenses from

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the mo ...

s and local regulators. PayU's products include a PCI-DSS certified payment gateway, an anti-fraud system and an online Visa/MasterCard acquirer.

References

External links

* {{FinTech in India Payment service providers Financial services companies established in 2002 Companies based in North Holland Privately held companies of the Netherlands Online payments