CORRECTING and REPLACING MultiSafepay Supporting 20,000 SMEs to Scale Through Payment Integration and Digitisation with Antom Technology Engine

AMSTERDAM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 17, 2025--

Seventh paragraph, first sentence should read: Today, 8% of MSP’s total processed transaction volume is handled through in-person payments, using traditional payment terminal technology (such as C-TAP terminals) as well as Smart POS devices which offer merchants digital tools and do more than just accept payments. (instead of MSP’s total processed transaction volume is handled through in-person payments, using traditional payment terminal technology (such as C-TAP terminals) as well as Smart POS devices which offer merchants digital tools and do more than just accept payments.).

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The updated release reads:

MULTISAFEPAY SUPPORTING 20,000 SMES TO SCALE THROUGH PAYMENT INTEGRATION AND DIGITISATION WITH ANTOM TECHNOLOGY ENGINE

MultiSafepay (MSP), an Amsterdam-based payment service provider, which became part of Ant International’s Antom, reported strong growth since its strategic integration with Antom, supporting thousands more SMEs in Europe to scale through innovative solutions.

Since announcing its acquisition in July 2024, MSP has expanded its merchant base across Europe to 20,000+, an 11% increase. Transaction volumes surged by 44% year-on-year, reflecting customers' robust business growth as well as the addition of new top industry performers. Merchants are increasingly moving to unified payment services, in-person payments are now already at 8% of total volume processed across retail and food & beverage verticals - demonstrating the value of increased efficiency in operations and the benefits of enhancing customer touchpoints.

This acceleration displays the potential of Antom’s post-acquisition strategy to combine local expertise with a global technology suite, benefiting the merchants MSP serves with innovative digital technologies.

MSP provides merchants with unified payment capabilities, supporting more than 40 local and international payment methods, including cards, e-wallets, Buy Now Pay Later, internet banking, across in-person and online channels.

Since becoming wholly-owned subsidiary of Ant International, MSP has been integrating with Antom to help businesses improve operations, and scale with confidence, using the powerful solutions relied on by industry leaders globally. MSP will also look to work with other businesses of Ant International such as WorldFirst to offer inclusive financial services to its SME merchant base.

In under a year, the integration has propelled innovation for merchant expansion, improvements in payment success rates, and infrastructure upgrades, demonstrating the power of combining MSP’s 25-years of expertise with Antom’s global experience.

Today, 8% of MSP’s total processed transaction volume is handled through in-person payments, using traditional payment terminal technology (such as C-TAP terminals) as well as Smart POS devices which offer merchants digital tools and do more than just accept payments. Supporting a range of technology gives merchants a flexible, cost-effective way to handle payments and demonstrates MSP’s dedication to helping small businesses thrive by offering a solution that fits their unique needs.

Olaf Geurs, CEO of MultiSafepay, commented: “We expect to exceed our 2025 growth projections given current strong numbers and deepened partnership with Ant International. The data shows how SME partners are embracing our joint innovative solutions with Antom to accelerate their digital operations. MultiSafepay's momentum underscores the value of our collaboration in empowering businesses to succeed in today's fast-evolving world.”

“Accelerating the adoption of new technologies like AI in merchant payment services enable us to raise efficiency while maximizing our expertise in the SME sector,” said Gary Liu, General Manager of Antom, Ant International. “By building on MultiSafepay’s platform and Antom’s global expertise, we’re making simple, flexible payments accessible to every business - no matter their size or ambition.”

The company has recently moved to Ant International’s new office in Amsterdam’s vibrant City Centre, enabling collaborations with other Ant International business pillars to directly benefit SMEs.

About Antom

Ant International's Antom is the leading payment and digitisation services provider for merchants around the world. It offers unified merchant payment solutions to serve businesses of all sizes. Antom supports merchants in over 50 countries and regions, enabling them to connect with consumers in more than 200 markets, with the flexibility to accept payments in more than 100 currencies. Beyond payments, it provides digital marketing solutions and merchant digitisation services to help merchant streamline operations and enhance customer engagement.

To learn more, please visit https://www.antom.com/.

About MultiSafepay

MultiSafepay is a leading Amsterdam-based payment service provider, combining decades of expertise with powerful in-house technology to help every business grow faster and compete with confidence, no matter their size or ambition.

By leveling the playing field in payments, we offer European businesses a simple, flexible solution for online, in-person, and unified payments, all through a single platform and integration. With a personal approach to payments, we optimize success rates, reduce complexity, and help your business do more, and earn more.

https://www.multisafepay.com

Ant International’s new office in Amsterdam City Centre will house MultiSafepay’s operations and enable further collaboration between its business pillars.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The deaths of at least six Italian and Chinese tourists in a fiery van crash in Idaho near Yellowstone National Park are a reminder that the roads leading into the popular international destination can be as dangerous as the region’s grizzly bears and boiling hot pools.

The van collided with a pickup truck Thursday on a highway just west of Yellowstone. Both vehicles caught fire, and the survivors were taken to hospitals with injuries, according to police. The tourists who were killed were from Italy and China, officials said.

The Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco said eight Chinese citizens were injured in the crash. The accident comes after a crash in 2019 of a bus from Las Vegas carrying Chinese tourists that rolled over near southern Utah’s Bryce National Park, killing four people and injuring dozens more.

Where the van in Thursday's accident was coming from and going was unknown. Some Yellowstone roads, including the one south of Old Faithful — the park's most famous geyser — were still closed after the snowy winter.

The highway where the accident happened south of West Yellowstone, Montana, offers a way to get between Yellowstone and Grand Teton at this time of year, before a north-south route is plowed and the park fully opens for summer.

According to the most recent data from the International Trade Administration, 36% of international visitors who arrived to the U.S. by air listed visits to national parks and national monuments as their top leisure activity while in the U.S.

Seventeen percent of Yellowstone's visitors came from other countries in 2016, according to a park visitor use study with the most recent comprehensive data available.

Visitors from Europe and Asia accounted for the majority of travelers from outside the U.S., with 34% from China, 11% from Italy and 10% from Canada.

The COVID-19 pandemic changed those numbers significantly, said Brian Riley whose Wyoming-based business, Old Hand Holdings, markets the Yellowstone region in China and runs tours.

“Every Chinese is taught how great Yellowstone is in their elementary school,” Riley said Friday.

The pandemic put a sharp brake on tourism of all kinds but especially from China, which has yet to recover, Riley observed. Now, visits by people already living in the U.S. account for most visits by Chinese, he said.

“Foreigners in general they don’t feel safe over here like they did before,” Riley said Friday. “The Chinese are kind of preaching that behind the scenes.”

The U.S. tourism industry expected 2025 to be another good year for foreign visitors. But several months in, international arrivals have been plummeting. Angered by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and rhetoric, and alarmed by reports of tourists being arrested at the border, some citizens of other countries are staying away from the U.S. and choosing to travel elsewhere.

Riley, who grew up in Jackson, Wyoming, just south of Grand Teton and lived in China for a time to learn Mandarin and why Chinese wanted to visit the U.S., is more focused of late on getting them to visit Hawaii, a state perceived as less dangerous.

Yellowstone's crowds peak in the summer, but international tourism peaks in spring and fall, according to Riley and West Yellowstone Mayor Jeff McBirnie.

Many foreign visitors are parents of international students at U.S. colleges and universities.

“They're like, 'Hey let's drop our kid off and go on vacation for a week.' Or kid's graduating, let's get them through college and go on vacation,'” said McBirnie, who owns a pizza place in town. “They really bring a huge economic impact to this town.”

Yellowstone suffered a one-two punch between the pandemic and devastating floods in 2022 that cut off access to parts of the park for months.

Tourism rebounded with 4.7 million visitors last year, Yellowstone's second-busiest on record.

Winding roads and natural distractions help fuel numerous accidents in and around the park.

The first death involving a passenger vehicle in Yellowstone came just a few years after the park was completely motorized and a fleet of buses replaced the stage coaches and horses used for transport in the park’s early years.

In 1921, a 10-passenger bus went off the road in the Fishing Bridge area of the park and down an embankment, killing a 38-year-old Texas woman when her neck was broken, according to park historian Lee Whittlesey.

Whittlesey in his book “Deaths in Yellowstone.” chronicles deaths by all means –- from drownings in hot springs, to bear maulings, airplane crashes and murders. Auto deaths, Whittlesey wrote, are “legion” in the park, to the point that he felt them too ordinary to include in his tally of fatalities.

Another accounting of deaths in Yellowstone says at least 17 people died inside the park in motor vehicle crashes since 2007, ranking it the second most common cause of deaths behind medical issues.

Whittlesey presaged the chapter of his book covering road deaths with a quote attributed to the 15th century soothsayer Mother Shipton: “Carriages without horses shall go, And Accidents fill the world with woe.”

Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

FILE - In this Aug. 3, 2016, file photo, a large bison blocks traffic as tourists take photos of the animals in the Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. (AP Photo/Matthew Brown, File)