ACI Worldwide has agreed to buy Speedpay, the US bill pay business of Western Union, in a deal worth $750m.

The all-cash transaction will combine the Speedpay and UP Bill Payment platforms into a single bill payment platform.

Together, the two companies also intend to cater to over 4,000 customers in the US.

Their aim is to cover diverse sectors including consumer finance, insurance, healthcare, higher education, utilities, government and mortgage.

Western Union president and CEO Hikmet Ersek said: “Divesting the Speedpay business allows us to concentrate our resources on our cross-border money movement strategies and monetise a non-core asset for our shareholders.

“Our strategy remains focused on expanding our digital services, leveraging our platform to unlock new cross-border, cross-currency payments opportunities, and generating additional operating efficiencies.”

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The deal is pending regulatory approvals. It is slated to conclude in the second quarter of this year.

ACI expects the acquisition to improve net adjusted EBITDA margin in its On Demand segment.

On the other hand, Western Union expects around $500m in pre-tax gain from the deal.

ACI president and CEO Phil Heasley said: “This acquisition reinforces ACI’s “any payment, every possibility” vision and accelerates our ability to capitalise on the growing global payment transaction opportunity over the next five years.

“It presents a great opportunity for ACI to strengthen and add scale to our On Demand business, and provides fuel for growth and increased R&D investment which will benefit both ACI and Speedpay customers.”

Last month, ACI acquired the technology assets of RevChip and TranSend to enhance its UP Merchant Payments solution.