Lloyds Banking Group could announce the acquisition of Curve for about £120m as soon as this week.
City sources said this weekend that the terms of a transaction had been agreed, although a formal announcement could yet slip to later in the month.
Lloyds has been in talks with Curve about a takeover for some time, with Sky News revealing that discussions were taking place in July.
The financial services giant, which owns the Halifax brand and operates the biggest bank branch network in the UK, believes Curve’s digital wallet platform will be a valuable asset amid growing regulatory pressure on Apple to open its payment services to rivals.
Curve was founded by Shachar Bialick, a former Israeli special forces soldier, in 2016, and was hailed as one of Britain’s most promising fintechs.
Three years later, Mr Bialick told an interviewer: “In 10 years’ time we are going to be IPOed [listed on the public equity markets]… and hopefully worth around $50bn to $60bn.”
The sale price may therefore be a disappointment to long-standing Curve shareholders, given that it raised £133m in its Series C funding round, which concluded in 2023.
That round included backing from Britannia, IDC Ventures, Cercano Management – the venture arm of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s estate – and Outward VC.
Curve was also reported to have raised more than £40m last year, while reducing employee numbers and suspending its US expansion.
In total, the company has raised more than £200m in equity since it was founded.
Curve is being advised by KBW, part of the investment bank Stifel, on the discussions with Lloyds.
The company is chaired by the City grandee Lord Fink, who is also a shareholder in the company.
Curve has been positioned as a rival to Apple Pay in recent years, having initially launched as an app enabling consumers to combine their debit and credit cards in a single wallet.
Lloyds is said to have identified Curve as a strategically attractive bid target as it pushes deeper into payments infrastructure under chief executive Charlie Nunn.
In March, the Financial Conduct Authority and Payment Systems Regulator began working with the Competition and Markets Authority to examine the implications of the growth of digital wallets owned by Apple and Google.
Lloyds owns stakes in a number of fintechs, including the banking-as-a-service platform Thought Machine, but has set expanding its tech capabilities as a key strategic objective.
The group employs more than 70,000 people and operates more than 700 branches across Britain.
Curve is chaired by Lord Fink, the former Man Group chief executive who has become a prolific investor in British technology start-ups.
Source: https://news.sky.com/
