NEW DELHI: Prosus NV has agreed to acquire Indian online payments service BillDesk for 345 billion rupees (US$4.7bil or RM19.5bil), making its largest global acquisition to date in the Asian nation. The European investment powerhouse’s PayU unit has struck a deal to buy the 11-year-old startup, creating a digital payments giant with a total volume of US$147bil (RM612bil). It will take Prosus’ investment in India to more than US$10bil (RM42bil) to date, the company said in a statement. Prosus, whose biggest investment is Tencent Holdings Ltd, will be getting in on an Indian payments arena on the cusp of taking off. BillDesk, backed by Visa, was one of the pioneers of online payments in India alongside larger rival Paytm.
