CheckFree has acquired all the outstanding shares of UK STP and financial messaging vendor Heliograph for $18.3 million in cash.
HelioGraph will be merged with CheckFree's Financial and Compliance Solutions (CFACS) business unit.
Under the deal, HelioGraph will retain its management team, base of 50 employees and offices in London.
Checkfree will add HelioGraph's suite of financial messaging, transaction management, corporate actions and trade status tracking products to CFACS' enterprise reconciliation and matching platform.
CheckFree says the combination of its products with Heliograph's will enable it to deliver a comprehensive, global enterprise financial transaction management system that will allow clients to achieve more streamlined transaction settlements, as well as centralised information and exception management.
Sean Feeney, executive vice president and general manager of CheckFree's software division, says: "With a single provider, companies can manage the end-to-end transaction lifecycle to track trade status, confirm transaction settlement, reconcile transactions, manage exceptions and risk and provide real-time reporting.
"The new solution not only addresses straight-through processing, but other crucial business issues, such as business process optimisation and risk management."
CheckFree says the acquisition of HelioGraph - a company with trailing twelve months revenue of approximately $8.0 million - reflects its commitment to grow its software business and strengthen its international presence. Its CFACS division recently announced the opening of a London office to directly market CheckFree's Recon-Plus Frontier software internationally.