Mastercard on Thursday said it has acquired 12.5 per cent stake in Pune-based third-party paymet services provider ElectraCard Services (ECS). However, financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“The investment in ECS bolsters Mastercard’s overarching global processing strategy by further extending Mastercard’s product offerings and enhancing services across the full spectrum of the processing value chain,” the company said in a statement.
Mastercard expects to increase global revenues by 13-14 per cent each year for the next few years, higher than the 9-10 per cent growth forecast for the payments industry, said Ajay Banga, president and CEO, Mastercard Worldwide.
“India is one of our fastest growing markets although it is not the fastest,” said Banga, during a press conference in Mumbai. “Europe is another region where we see good potential for growth.”
He said there was good potential for e-commerce in India although usage is low at present. “However, I think mobile commerce could leapfrog over other forms of commerce in India, simply because of the mobile phone penetration in the country.”
Banga revealed that MasterCard was open to acquire more stake in ECS – the largest player in the country when it comes to processing services and providing software for credit and debit cards payments – but not interested in controlling the company. Banga said he was satisfied with the manner in which ECS was being run.
Mastercard had announced, last month, that it had agreed to buy England-based payment services provider DataCash Group Plc for $ 520 milion. “The Data Cash acquisition will give us an internet payment gateway in Europe, where we see huge potential for growth,” said Banga.
Mastercard would continue to look at inorganic growth opportunities while focusing on organic growth. “We have a very healthy balance sheet. The total debt on our books is only $ 26 million,” he added.
Source: Sify