Visa’s Planned $5.3B Purchase of Fintech Firm Plaid Challenged by US DOJ

The Justice Department's November 2020 suit has reversed the planned merger. The United States Department of Justice saw a victory in a major fintech acquisition case that could set the stage for a host of antitrust enforcements.On Tuesday, the DoJ announced that Visa and Plaid had called it quits on their planned merger. Originally announced almost exactly a year ago, Visa was planning to pay $5.3 billion for the upstart tech firm. Plaid's ubiquitous software is designed to connect disparate systems of financial data securely. In its November 2020 complaint, the DoJ alleged that Visa was....

United-States-based Twitter users had been reporting suspicious data access requests from FTX.US to their bank accounts. Plaid is a fintech company that facilitates communication between financial services apps and users’ banks and credit card providers. In FTX.US’ case, its products enable users to allow FTX.US customers to connect their bank accounts to the FTX app. This would then allow FTX.US to request payments that will be processed by the ACH network. In a pinned Tweet on Nov. 12, Plaid announced it has suspended FTX’s access to Plaid products as of approximately 6:30 am UTC on Nov.....

U.S. authorities want information from Bain & Co about Visa's Plaid acquisition. The U.S. Department of Justice, or DoJ, recently publicized an investigation into Visa's ongoing acquisition of fintech company Plaid.  "Today, the Department of Justice filed a petition in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts to enforce Bain & Company’s compliance with the department’s Civil Investigative Demand (CID)," the DoJ said in an Oct. 27 public statement. Essentially, U.S. authorities have taken legal action to obtain information from Boston-based consulting giant Bain & Company....

The San Francisco-based fintech company now supports Binance.US, Gemini, Robinhood and SoFi accounts. United States data transfer network Plaid has added four major cryptocurrency exchanges to its platform, giving users the ability to more easily connect their digital asset portfolios to other applications. Crypto platforms Binance.US, Gemini, Robinhood and SoFi are now supported by the Plaid network, the company announced Thursday. Support for additional platforms, such as Blockchain.com and BitGo, is scheduled to commence later this year. We now support leading digital asset exchanges on....

Monopolizing a market is legal in some instances, but not others. The United States Department of Justice is filing suit against Visa for its acquisition of Plaid, which the DoJ argues is an illegal play to achieve monopoly. According a complaint filed by the DoJ on Wednesday: "Visa seeks to buy Plaid — as its CEO said — as an 'insurance policy' to neutralize a 'threat to our important US debit business.' By acquiring Plaid, Visa would eliminate a nascent competitive threat that would likely result in substantial savings and more innovative online debit services for merchants and....