FIS obtains clearance for its $13.5 billion acquisition of Global Payments’ Issuer Solutions business

Compass Lexecon advised Fidelity National Information Services, Inc. (‘FIS’) in the context of FIS’s acquisition of Global Payments’ issuer solutions business. The transaction was reviewed by multiple competition authorities globally, including the UK’s CMA and authorities in Canada, Germany, Ireland, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Situation

In April 2025, FIS, a global leader in financial technology, announced it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Global Payments’ Issuer Solutions business (Total System Services, ‘TSYS’). The Parties stated that TSYS is a global market player in credit issuer processing, with capabilities highly complementary to FIS’s established debit and prepaid issuer processing capabilities, as well as FIS's banking and payments business, to create a best-in-class end-to-end offering for financial institutions and corporates. The transaction is expected to bring about revenue and cost synergies and extend FIS’s global reach. The transaction was conditional on Global Payments’ acquisition of WorldPay HoldCo LLC from FIS and GTCR LLC.

Our role

Compass Lexecon provided economic advice to FIS and its external legal counsel (Latham & Watkins) during pre-notification and phase 1 reviews across all jurisdictions. We also worked with TSYS and its external counsel.

Our analysis showed that FIS and TSYS (‘the Parties’) do not compete closely for the same opportunities, and that there are several credible competitors that will continue to pose a competitive constraint on the Parties post-transaction. We also calculated shares of supply to demonstrate that there is minimal or no incremental effect arising from the transaction, as well as an analysis of the Parties’ customer portfolio to highlight the difference in scale for issuer processing services. This analysis was split based on card types (credit, debit, and prepaid) and geographical market.

Outcome

The transaction received regulatory approvals in all jurisdictions, including from the UK Competition and Markets Authority, the Irish Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, and under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act in the US.

The team

The Compass Lexecon team in Europe was led by Neil Dryden, and included Thomas Bowman, Ben Dubowitz, Ann-Christine Schwegmann, Adrian Sjahid, Julian Alves, and Jude Tinkler-Davies. The Compass Lexecon team in the US was led by Dennis Carlton, and included Lynette Neumann, Allan Shampine, and Heather Spang.

We worked closely with the team at Latham & Watkins, led by Simon Pritchard, Stephanie Adams, Oscar Hayward, Nayantara Ravichandran and Maria Loudjeva in Europe and by Caitlin N. Fitzpatrick, Joshua Holian, Francesca Pisano and Alexandra Clark in the US. We also worked alongside a team at Slaughter and May that advised TSYS in Europe.