Fiserv plans to acquire the Canadian company Payfare, a digital banking firm it had been competing with two months earlier for business from delivery company DoorDash.

Payfare, which provides earned wage access services, had been managing DoorDash’s card issuing platform that lets its delivery gig workers get paid via a debit card, TD Cowen analyst Bryan Bergin wrote in a Dec. 23 note to investors. Then, the big processor nabbed that business, the financial firm’s analyst noted.

A spokesperson for Fiserv confirmed that the company took DoorDash's business from Payfare, but declined to comment beyond what was written in the company's announcement last week of the pending acquisition.

In late October, Milwaukee-based Fiserv announced an agreement to provide the embedded financing services for DoorDash. Taking that business from Payfare put that company in "a challenging position," Bergin wrote.

Fiserv did not say how much it plans to pay for Payfare, but Bergin and analysts from the financial firm Robert W. Baird estimated the deal was worth $140 million.

Fiserv is buying Payfare in order to enhance its embedded banking, lending and card management services, the company said in a Dec. 23 news release.

Toronto-based Payfare provides program management software that focuses on new economy workforces, the release said. 

"We recognize that Fiserv gives us enhanced scale and technology, which better positions us to serve a growing number of large organizations and deliver a modern digital experience," Payfare CEO Marco Margiotta said in the release.

The deal is subject to shareholder and court approvals, and is expected to close in the first half of this year.