MasterCard announced today that it has acquired Pune-based ElectraCard Services (ECS), a provider of software products and processing services for electronic payments. Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. With the deal, MasterCard will acquire ECS's team and product offerings. The acquisition process will be completed by the second quarter of 2014. ElectraCard is a subsidiary of Opus Software Solutions, which will continue to focus on growing its IT services business for the credit and payments market in the North America region. ECS provides solutions and services to financial institutions, retailers, finance companies and corporations to meet their requirements for payment transactions including cards (credit, debit, pre-paid, smart cards and ACH) across diverse payment channels (online, POS, ATM, etc). Their products enable customers to issue and manage payment cards and electronically process card transactions across multiple channels. The company's customer base includes financial institutions, retailers and telecom companies in over 25 countries, they claim. Earlier in 2010, MasterCard had invested an undisclosed amount to acquire a 12.5% stake in EC. MasterCard had also acquired Sam Pitroda's mobile wallets and payment solutions company C-SAM earlier this year. The company had used this service to speed up launch of its MasterPass wallet service internationally.
