Europe’s payments industry saw a rise of 53.3% in overall deal activity during Q4 2020, when compared to the four-quarter average, according to GlobalData’s deals database.

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A total of 46 deals worth $18.92bn were announced for the region during Q4 2020, against the last four-quarter average of 30 deals.

Of all the deal types, venture financing saw most activity in Q4 2020 with 24, representing a 52.2% share for the region.

In second place was M&A with 17 deals, followed by private equity deals with five transactions, respectively capturing a 37% and 10.9% share of the overall deal activity for the quarter.

In terms of value of deals, M&A was the leading category in Europe’s payments industry with $18.38bn, while venture financing and private equity deals totalled $469.26m and $69.13m, respectively.

Europe payments industry deals in Q4 2020: Top deals

The top five payments deals accounted for 97.9% of the overall value during Q4 2020.

The combined value of the top five payments deals stood at $18.53bn, against the overall value of $18.92bn recorded for the quarter.

The top five payments industry deals of Q4 2020 tracked by GlobalData were:

1) The $9.23bn merger of Nets and Nexi

2) The $9bn merger of Foley Trasimene AcquisitionII and Paysafe Group

3) LGT Lightstone Europe, Square, Tencent Holdings and TIM Ventures’ $110.35m venture financing of Satispay

4) The $95m venture financing of GoCardless by Bain Capital Ventures

5) PayPoint’s acquisition of Handepay and Merchant Rentals for $90.94m.

Verdict deals analysis methodology

This analysis considers only announced and completed deals from the GlobalData financial deals database and excludes all terminated and rumoured deals. Country and industry are defined according to the headquarters and dominant industry of the target firm. The term ‘acquisition’ refers to both completed deals and those in the bidding stage.

GlobalData tracks real-time data concerning all merger and acquisition, private equity/venture capital and asset transaction activity around the world from thousands of company websites and other reliable sources.

More in-depth reports and analysis on all reported deals are available for subscribers to GlobalData’s deals database.