LUKE MACGREGOR
Canada's biggest card payment processor, Moneris Solution, is among the suitors on a shortlist to buy Royal Bank of Scotland's payment processing business, a person familiar with the matter said.
RBS will also invite second-round bids from buyout firm CVC and from joint suitors Advent International and Bain Capital, the source said.
The Global Merchant Services (GMS) unit, which includes the WorldPay business, is expected to fetch £2.5-billion to £3-billion ($4-billion to $4.8-billion U.S.), industry sources have said.
Other bids are still being considered, including interest from Tsys and buyout groups Silverlake, TPG, Carlyle and Permira , sources said.
RBS and its adviser on the deal, UBS, are whittling down the list of suitors and a preferred bidder could be chosen within two months and a deal could be concluded as early as July.
Earlier this week sources told Reuters that UK payments firm Voice Commerce Group had dropped out of the fray, and JPMorgan's Chase Paymentech, Atos Origin and Apax Partners had also been interested early in the process.
RBS is being forced to sell WorldPay and other assets including a network of 318 branches and its commodities business by European competition authorities as a cost of being bailed out by taxpayers during the financial crisis.
Moneris could not immediately be reached for comment and RBS declined to comment.
Moneris was created as a joint investment between RBC Financial Group and BMO Financial Group in 2000 and processes more than 3 billion credit and debit transactions a year, according to its website.