As part of its digital plans to speed up growth by purchasing shares in companies, Banco Santander is buying a majority stake in Mercury TFS. The bank is making an investment of €30 million in the firm, which automates as well as digitizes management of trade finance transactions for corporate clients from start to finish, according to an announcement.
Javier San Félix, Santander’s Global Payments Services head, said per the announcement, “The investment accelerates our plans to build a service platform for SMEs and international companies to better serve our customers worldwide.”
San Félix continued, “We are also helping to globalize Mercury TFS, a software company with huge potential and a team with enormous talent, by reinforcing their technical and commercial teams and complementing their already broad product range.”
Santander, for its part, is buying 50.1 percent of Mercury TFS via the investment of €30 million. San Félix is becoming a part of the firm to chair its board, and the bank will have four of seven seats on the board. The CEO and head of technology for Mercury TFS will still lead the firm.
The bank has used the offerings of Mercury TFS for years in Mexico, Germany, Chile and Spain. Its businesses in Portugal and Britain will start to use it at the conclusion of the year via the international trade platform of Santander, Global Trade Services (GTS).
Spain-based TFS creates software for trade finance digitalization, which allows clients of Santander to manage trade finance activity through mobile phones or the web. The software aims to bolster service quality, improve the user experience and cut response times.
In separate news, Banco Santander was buying a bit over half of Ebury, the British payments platform, for $453 million per a November announcement from Ebury.
The payments platform of Ebury lets small and medium-sized firms trade globally. At the time, it was noted that Ebury has operations in 19 nations and would grow in Asia as well as Latin America with the investment of Santander.
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