India's Wipro To Acquire Payment Processor

India's Wipro Limited said Thursday that it will acquire payments specialist mPower Inc., a New Jersey-headquartered company with business ties to MasterCard.

The $28 million cash transaction will bring mPower's Chennai, India, operations into the Wipro fold. Wipro said mPower has total annualized revenues of about $18 million.

Wipro noted that the deal will also enable it to have a strategic relationship with MasterCard International through the acquisition of mPower's MPACT, which is a venture with MasterCard.

"This acquisition is a significant milestone in our strategy towards deepening our domain expertise and building a strong footprint in the payment industry," said Sudip Nandy, Wipro's chief strategy officer, in a statement. mPower has about 300 employees.

Wipro said the agreement calls for it to provide MasterCard and other clients a range of payment services including infrastructure services, package implementation, development, maintenance, and testing.

"The payments industry is an area where we expect to see rapid growth in the near future," said Sriram Srinivasan, Wipro's vice president of banking solutions, in a statement "We work across the chain from traditional, electronic and cards payments."