Bonn-based Prosystems offers managed services, project management and performance and in-house development and sales of customised software to savings banks.

The firm was established in 2004 as a technology service provider for several large savings banks in the Cologne-Bonn area of Germany. The company now has 223 employees and reported sales in its last fiscal year of around EUR43 million.

Wincor Nixdorf says the acquisition is part of a targeted expansion of its IT services for retail banks and it will offer new technology and service to existing customers.

Eckard Heidloff, president and CEO, Wincor Nixdorf, says: "We've seen that the trend toward outsourcing and automation in retail banking continues. So we're strengthening our outsourcing portfolio with prosystems IT. We already have customers in this area, but we want to attract additional banks with our portfolio so that we can continue to grow."

Wincor Nixdorf acquired the 51% holding in January. The remaining 49% is shared between Kreissparkasse Köln with 20.17%m, Sparkasse KölnBonn with 26.38%, and SDZ Sparkassen-Dienstezentrum on 2.45%.

This is the second IT outsourcing venture that Wincor has invested in. In 2005 it teamed with German savings banks Hamburger Sparkasse (Haspa) and Sparkasse Bremen to form a joint venture to provide IT services to financial institutions.

Under that deal the two savings banks merged their IT units to form the new Hamburg-based company, called Wincor Nixdorf Portavis.

"With this second majority stake in an outsourcing joint venture in Germany, we're expanding our position as a specialised provider of IT services for financial institutions," says Heidloff. "This is part of the targeted implementation of our concept of offering IT solutions for the optimisation of branch processes in retail banking, solutions that encompass all the necessary steps in modernisation, from consulting to operation."