Squire Patton Boggs has advised Wonga Group Limited, the UK’s largest short-term lender, on the sale of its German operation BillPay GmbH to Swedish payments start-up, Klarna AB.

Founded in 2009, BillPay is an online payment services provider with some 12 million customers across Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the Netherlands. BillPay is licensed by the German Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) to offer money transmission services under the Payment Services Supervision Act (ZAG).

Wonga is best known for its short-term loan products, and operates an international lending business for consumers in the UK, South Africa, Canada, Poland and Spain. The sale of BillPay is subject to the approval of BaFin.

Advising Wonga Group was a UK and Germany team led by London Corporate partner Rob Bray and senior associate Julian Ciecierski-Burns, which included corporate, financial services, Fintech, regulatory, tax and data protection experts in the Squire Patton Boggs London, Berlin and Frankfurt offices.

“It was a pleasure to have worked with Wonga on this strategic transaction for them in Europe, which highlights our strengths in delivering seamless advice across numerous practice areas in several jurisdictions,” commented Mr. Bray.