The financial consortium that bought UAE foreign exchange and digital payments company, Finablr will rebrand it as WizzFinancial and merge it with a newly-purchased Bahraini company BFC Group Holdings.
As part of the deal, Finablr and BFC Group will be merged under the WizzFinancial umbrella to create the largest remittance services and currency exchange group in the Middle East North Africa (MENA) region.
Switzerland-headquartered Prism Group AG and Abu Dhabi’s Royal Strategic Partners (RSP) in December bought the struggling payments company Finablr for a nominal $1 after it ran into financial difficulties as a financial scandal involving its majority shareholder Mr. BR Shetty erupted last year.
Earlier this year, the same consortium started acquisition discussionswith the Bahrain Financing Company (BFC), which works in money transfer and currency services. It is the holding company for Bahrain Financing Company, Bahrain Exchange Company in Kuwait, BFC Forex & Financial Services in India and BFC Payments in Bahrain.
“The deal creates the largest remittance services and currency exchange group in the MENA region and becomes the only operator with a direct presence in all six GCC countries. The acquisition creates a regional powerhouse with licenses to operate in over 30 countries,” WizzFinancial’s statement said.
BFC Group’s managing director and chief executive Mr. Ebrahim Ezra Nonoo will lead WizzFinancial’s international money transfer business, which has a presence in 170 countries, the companies said.
“WizzFinancial is in the process of consolidating additional remittance providers and alternative financial institutions onto our platform,” said Mr. Amir Nagammy, a Britain-based Arab-Israeli who is chairman of Prism Group.
