Visa-Backed Startup Nium Announces Acquisition to Dig Deeper Into Travel Payments
Photo Credit: Nium is acquiring virtual card payments company Ixaris, which is used by airlines and online travel agents. Pictured is an airport. Unsplash / Kychan
Skift Take
There are more signs of confidence that travel’s making a comeback, with outsider Nium now wanting a slice of the payments action by buying Ixaris.
A startup backed by Visa is jostling to become a major player in business-to-business travel payment technology, following its acquisition of Ixaris, a transaction which is planned for the third quarter. The amount has not been disclosed.
Nium, which was founded in 2014 as InstaReM, specialises in cross-border payments and originally targeted overseas workers sending their money home.
Now it's jumping into the travel industry, predicting a strong leisure recovery and more demand for those cross-border payments due to the surge in remote work.
“This is probably the best time to make an acquisition because travel is coming,” Prajit Nanu, Nium's co-founder and CEO, told Skift.
He said the travel industry had not experienced much digital tra
