Mastercard is considering a sale of the account-to-account payments business it picked up from Nets in 2019, the Financial Times reported. The company declined to comment.

A sale would put Mastercard’s largest acquisition to date back in play, after the company bought the business for about US$3.2 billion as part of its push beyond traditional card payments.

According to the report, Mastercard has appointed bankers to explore a sale of the unit, which could draw interest from private equity firms.

People familiar with the matter told the Financial Times that the company is unlikely to recover the price it originally paid.

The business, which supports real-time payments between bank accounts in Europe, is said to generate about US$370 million in annual revenue and roughly US$100 million in EBITDA.

Mastercard bought the asset from Denmark’s Nets Group in 2019 to expand its presence in account-to-account payments and broaden its offering beyond its core card business.

The reported sale comes shortly after Mastercard announced a deal to acquire stablecoin infrastructure provider BVNK for up to US$1.8 billion, as it continues to expand into newer areas of payments infrastructure.

Nets itself was acquired by Italian payments group Nexi in 2020 in a deal valued at €7.2 billion, helping create one of Europe’s largest payments operators.

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