In the first half of this year there were 26 acquisitions and corporate investment deals in companies that issue commercial and consumer credit, debit and prepaid cards and companies which provide card issuance processing and related support. Those transactions occurred in 16 jurisdictions. There were 10 financing deals involving commercial cards, 8 card issuance platform deals (including 2 acquisitions), 5 consumer credit card deals (including 2 acquisitions) and 3 prepaid card deals. The largest transaction was the $13.50-billion acquisition by US-based FIS of the card issuance process...