South African fintech Stitch has announced that it acquired Efficacy Payments, with the move allowing the company to provide direct card clearing services in the market.
The deal with Efficacy Payments comes as the second one for Stitch in 2025, with the company acquiring ExiPay in January this year to support the integration of online and in-person payments into one platform. Now, the current transaction enables the company to provide card acquiring services directly to merchants as a Designated Clearing System Participant (DCSP) and offer more simplified and cost-effective transactions.
Furthermore, by including Efficacy within the Stitch Group, the company has become one of the first fintech firms in South Africa to deliver direct card clearing online and in-person, underlining its commitment to serving clients across more of their payment needs. Additionally, as a designated clearing system participant, Stitch can provide a comprehensive, end-to-end card product with more control over the entire product lifecycle.
Stitch’s offering
As a gateway, switch, and acquirer, Stitch allows merchants to collaborate with a single provider that can perform the end-to-end acquiring services across technical, compliance, financial, and operational requirements. Also, the group is directly connected to Visa and Mastercard, with no dependency on an intermediary acquiring bank or switch, in turn mitigating potential failure points from the transaction. With its solutions, Stitch seeks to equip enterprise merchants with better conversions, faster access to new products and features, real-time reporting and reconciliation, and cost savings opportunities.
Including Efficacy’s team in the Stitch Group will enable the latter to facilitate solutions that meet the needs of the merchants that it works with. Representatives from Stitch emphasised that, as card processing represents an essential requirement for businesses operating across the South African region, the company has seen the potential for improvement when it comes to conversion, recon capabilities, and access to modern technology.
Before this deal, Stitch obtained USD 55 million in a funding round, with the capital being set to solidify and scale the company’s position in Africa’s evolving payment landscape. The round included participation from Raba Partnership, an African venture firm, which contributed USD 4.2 million, underlining the firm’s confidence in Stitch’s capabilities and offering.
