US govt blocking Visa's anti-competitive acquisition of Plaid

The US government sued to block Visa Inc.'s $5.3 billion acquisition of financial technology company Plaid for being anti-competitive.

Plaid is a financial technology firm with access to financial data from over 11,000 US banks.

Calling Visa "a monopolist in online debit transactions," the US government added that the deal was intended to "eliminate a nascent competitive threat” to that monopoly.

Plaid is a threat to Visa's monopoly as it has been developing a substitute for Visa’s online debit services, the Justice Department said.

The Justice Department noted that Visa’s CEO dubbed its Plaid acquisition as an “insurance policy” to neutralize a threat to its business.

Visa said the lawsuit reflects "a lack of understanding" of the highly competitive payments business and Plaid's and that it would vigorously defend the transaction.

In January, Visa said that acquiring would boost its access to the booming financial technology sector.

Visa has cornered 70 percent of the online debit services market, while Mastercard has 25 percent.