FSS acquires 46% stake Africa-based Ecentric Payment Systems

Financial Software and Systems (FSS) has announced a strategic investment in Ecentric Payment Systems, a Standard Bank subsidiary and a payment processor in South Africa. FSS has acquired a 46% stake in Ecentric through a combination of primary and secondary investments, with a potential to further its stake holding.

FSS has a comprehensive and integrated payments portfolio. FSS offers expertise in Issuance, Omnichannel Acquiring, Digital Banking, Processing and Switching, ATM Managed Services, ATM and POS Monitoring, Reconciliation and Settlement, Digital Security and Payment Analytics.

Nagaraj Mylandla, Managing Director, FSS states, “We are pleased to join Ecentric as an institutional investor in the company. We see the investment as an extraordinary opportunity to achieve a leadership position in the African payments space. The partnership will help us leverage mutual synergies to strengthen our presence in Africa’s largest markets and drive increased growth for FSS payment acquiring and other solutions.”

Headquartered in South Africa, Ecentric, a Standard Bank subsidiary, is a leading payment switching and retail value added services provider. Ecentric has a strong presence in domestic and other African markets for its payment acceptance solutions. Ecentric processes transactions for a majority of Tier-1 retailers and, small and specialized retail outlets. The product and service offerings include Card Processing, Value Added Services, Remittances, Issuing, Cash Management and Reconciliation.

FSS’ deep payments technology expertise and knowledge of working in emerging markets across the globe, combined with Ecentric’s established market presence creates a formidable proposition for the African payments market. The Ecentric investment will also provide FSS an ideal platform to build a Fintech hub focused on the development of payment solutions tailored to the unique requirements of the African region. Ecentric will leverage FSS’ proven payments technology expertise and funnel the investment proceeds to fuel its next phase of market growth. As part of the agreement, Ecentric will deploy FSS PoSabIlity, a market-proven integrated POS driving and in-store payment acceptance solution.

Hassen Sheik, CEO of Ecentric says, “We are very excited to welcome our strategic partner, FSS, a global payments leader, as a new investor. The financial and strategic backing from FSS, will help Ecentric accelerate product innovation and grow the business in its home market as well as expand to more countries. This backing brings us a step closer to achieving our goal of creating a ubiquitous and universal digital payment acceptance market in the continent.”