Brazilian fintech Pismo draws interest from Visa, Mastercard

Pismo, a cloud-based banking and payments startup, is drawing acquisition interest from payments giants Visa and Mastercard in a deal that could value it around $1 billion, Bloomberg reports.

Why it matters: If completed, the $1 billion acquisition of Pismo could be a watershed moment in an otherwise dismal M&A market for fintechs.

Driving the news: Visa and Mastercard are reportedly among the bidders for São Paulo-based Pismo, which is working with Goldman Sachs on a possible sale.

• Other interested parties include a bank and private equity funds, according to the Bloomberg report.
• Meanwhile, Valor Economico reported last week that Visa had submitted a second offer to acquire the company for $1.4 billion after its original $1 billion bid was rebuffed.

Context: Pismo sells cloud-based banking and payments software that enables financial institutions to quickly spin up card, lending and other digital banking initiatives.

• Its platform processes 74 million accounts and manages 38 million cards for customers that include Itaú Bank and BTG Pactual.
• In October 2021, Pismo raised $108 million in Series B funding from investors that include SoftBank, Amazon and Accel.