Fintech giant Fiserv has agreed a $465 million deal to acquire person-to-person payments specialist CashEdge.
The two firms have been competing in the fast-growing P2P payments market, signing up hundreds of financial institutions to their respective products - Fiserv's ZashPay and CashEdge's Popmoney - over the last couple of years.
In March they both struck deals with Visa to expand the availability of their offerings by integrating the card giant's personal payment service.
Fiserv says the acquisition of CashEdge - which employs around 300 people in New York, Silicon Valley, Chennai and Mumbai - should help it provide new capabilities such as P2P money request, and small business electronic invoicing and remittance to its customers.
Jeffery Yabuki, CEO, Fiserv, says: "CashEdge brings a strong and knowledgeable team that has a well-deserved reputation for innovative product development and delivery excellence. Importantly, we share a common vision for new payment solutions enabled by a financial institution-centric platform."
The transaction is slated to close by September, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Fiserv expects it to be neutral to adjusted earnings per share in 2011 and accretive in 2012.