Under the terms of the agreement, which was sealed on 30 April, Accurate will be folded into CheckFree’s software division, and is expected to contribute revenue of about $3 million in the fourth fiscal quarter.

The US-based company, which has made no secret of its determination to topple the European hegemony enjoyed by arch rival SmartStream, says the Accurate acquisition is part of a strategy to "expand the company’s global presence and client base".

CheckFree effectively ended a seven-year distribution agreement with SunGard when it set up a London office in September 2003 to directly market its own-brand reconciliation program Recon Plus Frontier. The company consolidated its position in the post-trade transaction management space two months later with the acquisition of financial messaging vendor HelioGraph.

Randy McCoy, executive vice president, CheckFree Corporation comments: "Europe is important to us and one of the things you can see from this acquisition is that CheckFree Software has in two steps – the acquisition of HelioGraph and Accurate – become very much an international financial services company with nearly 40-45 per cent of our revenues and employee base now located in the UK."

Finextra expects that Accurate’s NXG software platform will ultimately be adopted as the core framework for delivery of an enterprise-wide reconciliation, exception management, workflow and business intelligence offering.

CheckFree has yet to elaborate on its future plans, both for the product portfolio and staff of the merged businesses. McCoy stresses that Accurate products will continue to be fully supported post-merger and that the company is committed to growing the business. "The objective of the acquisition was not to eliminate workforce and enhance profit, it was to combine workforce and accelerate growth. We definitely do not see a lot of job loss by any means."