RBC and BMO to sell Moneris for $2 billion

Moneris says one in three Canadian transactions runs through its systems. The company is changing hands.

RBC and BMO announced Monday that they’ve agreed to sell their jointly owned Moneris Solutions Corporation to Francisco Partners, a San Francisco-based technology investment firm, for approximately $2 billion. 

Each bank will receive half. When the deal closes, both will enter exclusive, long-term customer referral agreements with Moneris. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of fiscal 2027.

Moneris has spent 25 years under joint ownership by the two banks. It now helps businesses accept and manage payments at more than 325,000 points of commerce across Canada, with e-commerce tools, point-of-sale hardware and software, and integrated business tools.

Francisco Partners has invested in more than 500 technology companies and raised more than $75 billion USD in capital. Its previous payments investments include NMI and Verifone. Jeff Sloan, former president and CEO of Global Payments Inc., will join Moneris as chairman.

Both banks do pretty well on the way out. RBC expects an after-tax gain of about $475 million when the transaction closes. BMO expects about $600 million.

In the announcement, Moneris says it will keep its head office and technology infrastructure in Canada. The company has nearly 2,000 employees across the country.

“Our commitment to our customers, partners and people remains unchanged,” says James Hicks, president and CEO at Moneris.

If your payment processing runs through Moneris, the proposed ownership change is reason enough to reopen the vendor file.

Pull the contract. Check the change-of-control terms, data handling provisions, service level commitments, integration roadmap, pricing, and vendor risk assessment. 

Those decisions were made before Francisco Partners entered the picture. The useful question now is whether the assumptions behind them still match the vendor relationship that would exist after closing.

The transaction still requires regulatory approvals, including under Canada’s Retail Payment Activities Act and the Competition Act. That gives technology teams time to find out what their contracts say when the owner changes. 

Nobody ever got in trouble for reading the vendor contract twice.

Final shots

• Moneris says one in three Canadian transactions runs through its systems. That’s a lot of payment infrastructure tied up in one proposed sale.
• Moneris says its head office and technology infrastructure will stay in Canada. Customers still need to know what changes, if anything, in their own agreements.
• The deal hasn’t closed, which gives Moneris customers time to do that review before the ownership change takes effect.