GoCardless, the bank payment company, has signed an agreement to acquire Sentenial Ltd, operating globally under the Nuapay brand, from EML Payments Limited (ASX: EML) subject to regulatory approvals.

The acquisition will significantly scale GoCardless’ indirect channel proposition, consolidating its position as a key payment provider to existing and new customer segments including Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Payment Service Providers (PSPs).

In addition, by incorporating Nuapay’s offering into its bank payment platform, GoCardless will fast-track the rollout of new disbursement capabilities to its customers and prospects. This will enable GoCardless to unlock new vertical sectors and use cases in areas including payroll, financial services, utilities, insurance, gaming and gambling.

Businesses and partners will benefit from a full-service provider with a relentless focus on bank payments, enabling disbursements and payment collection through direct debit, real-time payments and open banking, alongside enhanced features for improving payment success and reducing fraud.

Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO of GoCardless, said: “Nuapay is an established account-to-account payment provider and open banking specialist with a blue chip customer base. Its business is perfectly aligned to our growth strategy, and will accelerate our vision to become the world’s bank payment network.”

Brian Hanrahan, co-founder and CEO of Nuapay, said: “How the world pays and gets paid is being transformed, with account-to-account payments and open banking playing the central role in that shift. Building on that shared vision, this acquisition will result in a combined organisation with deep domestic and international payments and open banking expertise plus the scale to harness these opportunities for our clients and partners.”

The announcement is the latest milestone for GoCardless as it accelerates its path to profitability. Over the past 12 months it announced the launch of GoCardless Embed, its white-label product to PSPs to acquire customers at scale; in addition to new and renewed customer and partner signings, including JustGiving and Xero.