Founded in 2007 as BillShrink, the Silicon Valley-based outfit initially acted as an online service that helped users save money through personalised recommendations on things such as reducing bills.

Rebranded Truaxis, it has since moved into the rewards business, helping banks and retailers deliver personalised offers to customers. Last year it won the Innotribe start-up competition at Sibos in Toronto, netting $50,000 with its StatementRewards system, which analyses customer's recurring bills to offer better deals via their online banking site.

MasterCard says that integrating the platform with its own network will allow for real-time offer delivery coupled with advanced analytics to ensure consumers get more meaningful deals, merchants gain efficiencies in driving sales and financial institutions build greater loyalty with customers.

In a blog post explaining the acquisition, Nandan Mer, group executive, global consumer credit, MasterCard, cites research from Aite Group suggesting that around 430 million card-based transactions will be linked to a card-based offer this year and that figure will increase to 1.7 billion by 2015.

"As we integrate Truaxis' market-leading technology with the MasterCard payment network, we will not only enable seamless delivery of offers through digital channels like online banking, a mobile app, or a mobile wallet, but also leverage the advanced analytics capabilities of MasterCard to improve offer relevance for consumers," says Mer.

Schwark Satyavolu, co-founder and CEO, Truaxis, adds: "Being part of the MasterCard family allows us to scale our technology platforms and continue to grow our issuer distribution pipeline globally to deliver highly personalised offers to consumers, through their preferred channels."