Japanese electronics conglomerate Hitachi has acquired Chennai-based Prizm Payments Services by entering into a share transfer agreement with all the company shareholders including Winvest Holdings (India) Private Limited, Sequoia Capital, Axis Bank and other minority shareholders. Both the companies are looking to complete the share transfer by the end of February 2014, in accordance with the agreement terms and subject to the requisite regulatory approvals. Prizm Payments had raised a total $15 million from Sequoia Capital earlier - $8 million in August 2011 and $7 million in 2008. While the financial details or the terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, Hitachi said this acquisition will enable them to leverage Prizm's customer base of financial institutions and expertise in payment systems, cash operations and management systems for financial institutions to step up the development of its IT services business targeting financial institutions including ATMs in India and globally. The senior management team of Prizm Payment service will remain intact. According to the release, Prizm Payments employs around 1,100 employees and had revenues of Rs 500 crore as of March 31, 2013. Launched in March 2008, Prizm Payments deploys and operates White Label ATMs (WLAs) across the country. It had claimed to have 30,000 point of sale processing devices and 10,000 ATMs in the country as of July 2012. Prizm had also partnered with Mswipe Technologies and Axis Bank to launch a mobile point of sale solution Swipeon last year. This included a card reader device which can be attached to a mobile phone working as a mobile POS terminal, while the customer is sent a transaction receipt…
