Payments deliver highest M&A spike after three quarters

The payments industry stood out as an active market for mergers and acquisitions during the first three quarters of 2018 with a 33 percent increase in transactions over the same period last year.

Berkery Noyes investment bank cited the increase in payments transactions from 30 a year ago to 40 this year as the largest rise in volume of all the market segments it monitored in the third quarter Financial Technology and Information Industry M&A trend report.

The highest-value payments deal in the third quarter of 2018 was GrubHub's announced acquisition of LevelUp for $390 million. LevelUp provides analytics, loyalty and reward-based programs through a mobile platform that allows restaurants to interact with guests.

For the first three quarters of 2018, PayPal's $2.4 billion acquisition of mobile payment hardware provider iZettle ranked fifth among all acquisitions in all sectors.

Berkery Noyes reports on information, software, marketing and technology industries. It has managed and closed more than 500 transactions in healthcare, financial services, education and entertainment markets.