This year is already shaping up to be a big one for M&A in the financial-technology sector, and private-equity giant Blackstone is positioning itself to be well prepared.
Blackstone’s fintech team, which is led by senior managing director Vincent Letteri, has its sights set on four key trends this year: the digitization of payments, software and services for alternative asset investing, embedded finance, and digital substitutes for banks.
Within that group, payments, embedded finance, and the intersection of the two are the areas Letteri is most excited about, he told Insider.
Within payments, that includes everything from the ongoing move away from cash and paper checks to the rise of alternative payments.
Businesses like Venmo, Zelle, PayPal and others have disrupted the country’s reliance on Visa, Mastercard, and American Express. The team sees it as a long-term trend.
“It’s a massive market in the trillions of dollars. And so you have the opportunity for many multibillion-dollar companies to sit within the payment space. Second, you have a…
