J.P. Morgan & Chase CEO Jamie Dimon met with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in his nation’s capital after the company announced that it would acquire nearly half of an Athens-based technology company.
The American financial giant will obtain an approximately 49% stake in Viva Wallet, which offers a proprietary, cloud-based payments platform.
Financial terms of the deal remain undisclosed but sources told Reuters that Viva Wallet was valued at more than $2.0 billion. J.P. Morgan’s investment will top $1.15 billion.
During the January 28 meeting, Dimon told Mitsotakis that his company is willing to expand its office in Greece and invest further in Viva Wallet.
The Greek prime minister posted a brief clip from their meeting on YouTube.
Viva Wallet, a cloud-based service available in 23 European countries, provides card acceptance services through its point-of-sale (POS) application, add-on Google play devices and advanced payment systems in online stores.
“Viva Wallet’s mission is to change the way businesses pay and get paid in Europe with cutting edge technology,” Viva Wallet CEO Haris Karonis said.
“We are very excited to make a strategic investment in Viva Wallet to support their vision to empower new growth and payments innovation targeted at European small and midsize businesses,” Takis Georgakopoulos, J.P. Morgan’s head of global payments, said in a statement.
Georgakopoulos said the European payments sector offers vast opportunities, with more than 17 million merchants ready to implement payments systems that can be easily scaled.
