Network International to buy rival payment-processing company

Dubai-based Network International has agreed to acquire Emerging Markets Payments from the private equity investor Actis.

Network International, which handles electronic payments for about 18,000 merchants in the UAE each year and operates a network of ATMs, said that it had acquired EMP for an undisclosed sum.

EMP handles payments for more than 35,000 retailers and 130 banks across the Middle East and Africa.

The acquisition will be the first made by Network Inter­national since the American venture capital firms Warburg Pincus and General Atlantic bought a 49 per cent stake in the company from Dubai’s Abraaj Group in December.

“Together, Network International and EMP will be the clear market leader across the Middle East and Africa with presence across 71 countries,” said the Network International chairman Abdulla Qassem.

“Combined, we have an even greater opportunity to con­tinue to grow our footprint across the GCC and wider Middle East and Africa region, and provide industry-leading service to our merchant, bank and card processing partners as the industry continues to consolidate.”

Network International was set up in 1994 by Emirates Bank – 13 years before its merger with NBD – for the provision of payment-processing facilities for the bank.

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