SumUp’s $15 Billion Question: London or New York?

You know a fintech has grown up when the question shifts from “How many cafés use their card readers?” to “Which stock exchange wants them?” That’s where SumUp now finds itself. Born in 2012 with a pocket-sized card reader for tiny shops, it has since done some serious bulking – today it’s a payments and financial services heavyweight with over four million merchants in 35 countries. What started as a dongle in your pocket is now a bundle of business accounts, e-commerce, lending and invoicing – the sort of services high street banks once guarded like the family silver.

Now reports suggest the company is eyeing up an IPO worth somewhere between $10 and $15 billion. The big decision: list in London, with regulators it already knows, or head to New York for the bright lights and deeper pockets? On paper it’s about geography. In reality it’s about valuation, investor appetite and how much legal red tape the company is willing to handle.