PaymentGenes and Stepstone Corporate Finance+ team up

Two Dutch consultancies have agreed on a strategic partnership: PaymentGenes, a niche recruitment & consultancy specialised in payments, and Stepstone Corporate Finance+, a boutique mergers & acquisitions advisory firm.

In tandem the two still relatively young consulting firms will exchange services and expertise, with the aim of deepening their client offerings. PaymentGenes (founded in 2014), renowned for its global recruitment services, with offices in Amsterdam (HQ) and Toronto, launched its consultancy division in 2020 when a group of experienced Dutch payments experts associated with the club.

Stepstone Corporate Finance+ was founded in early 2019 by three experienced M&A professionals (ex-Oaklins and KPMG) and currently consists of a core team of six professionals, complemented by a seven-strong associate network. In 2021, the M&A consultancy closed roughly ten deals, with fintech and payments one of the firm’s sweet spots.

This is where PaymentGenes comes in. “Niche knowledge is crucial in M&A”, said Jurgen van Dijk, a partner at Stepstone Corporate Finance+, because “a lack of industry knowledge is a major reason for many M&A’s failures. Having deep knowledge of niches within the industry helps us attain a competitive advantage.”

“Usually buyer companies only look at the books of the company they are considering buying, failing to look under the hood for underlying systems and technologies that need to be integrated. Niche knowledge is what allows us to evaluate the opportunity in its vertical and take the not so visible technologies and factors into consideration.”

Ward Hagenaar, a partner at PaymentGenes, said of joining of forces: “A team of combined industry experts on fintech, payments, and M&A is very unique. PaymentGenes can provide insight on the market trends and determine the attractiveness of the solution and StepStone can provide insight on the financial and M&A aspect.”

The two companies will cooperate across the full payments landscape, spanning payment service providers, alternative payment methods, acquirers, schemes, and issuers, as well as broader market participators including fintechs, e-commerce companies, market places, and big techs.