Moneybookers rebrands to Skrill

I was a little perplexed by an email from Moneybookers a moment ago, announcing a new brand:

You know that Moneybookers has never been a company to stand still, always evolving our solutions to better meet your needs and expectations.

Our next evolution is to rebrand as Skrill, the first step towards offering you massively enhanced payment facilities to attract and convert even more customers. Skrill is going to better represent what we are and what we will become, as well as differentiate ourselves in a crowded marketplace.

Skrill was an informal term for money. But we – and you – are going to make it more than that. In the same way you ‘google’ something or ‘skype’ your friends, people will soon ‘Skrill’ money.

Skrill means a safe and innovative way for consumers to pay for their online goods. Skrill means choice. Skrill means flexibility. Skrill means reliability and peace of mind. Skrill makes you online safe.

Ecommerce Journal offers some perspective:

A prominent online payment processor Moneybookers will raise about £200 million by floating on the London Stock Exchange in the next few months. The move comes after its Middle Eastern owner Investcorp last year tried to sell Moneybookers.

The majority stake is owned by the Bahrain-based investment group which acquired the company in 2007 for €105m. According to reports Investcorp hired JPMorgan to manage the sale and was understood to be looking for as much as €400m for the UK-based group but failed to attract a buyer.

The reports also say that as part of the floatation the shareholders, which also include the founders of the company, are considering the rebranding of the group into Skrill, a slang word for money.

Techcrunch Europe throws more light:

Moneybookers Limited, which has been around for just under a decade, became the first e-money issuer to obtain an electronic money licence from the regulatory body the FSA and today claims over 15 million account holders and 70,000 merchants globally. While this year, Moneybookers was voted the UK’s fastest growing private-equity funded company by Deloitte and The Sunday Times. It’s apparently this “rapid growth” that has led Moneybookers to change its name.

Established in April 2002, Moneybookers has proved to be quite innovative, over the years. Time would tell, if this move would be beneficial to their growth strategy of not.