Fiserve to set up shop in India

Fiserve, the US-based IT solutions provider for the financial services, on Wednesday announced its foray into the Indian market and said that it was looking to acquire companies to increase its presence in the countrys.

The Nasdaq-listed software maker, which reported worldwide revenues of $3.4 billion in 2004 and 16,000 clients globally, will initially invest $10 million in India.

"The company will set up a facility in Noida which will be a profit centre of the company and not just a mere cost centre," said Fiserv Group President (global services group) Arun Maheshwari. The India facility, will be the company's first profit centre outside the US.

The company will hire 1,000 people for its 100,000 sq feet Noida facility, of which half will be for its business process outsourcing (BPO) operations. Fiserve, which has acquired 130 companies in the last 20 years, is also looking at acquiring companies with expertise in the financial services space.

"Fiserv is aggressively looking at acquiring companies with a size of anywhere between 300 to 3,000 people," Maheshwari added. Fiserv, which recently entered Australia, is tapping the cheque processing market in India.

The opportunity for digital cheque processing in India is huge and requires an initial investment of atleast $100 million, said Maheshwari. Fiserv, which has 95 per cent of its revenues from USA, is also planning to enter Japan, Brazil, China and Middle East by 2007.

"The company will make an entry into other markets including China, Japan in 2007, after the response we get in India," added Maheshwari.

The profit centre in India, which will offer both IT solutions and services and BPO, will focus on marketing the company's products and services, servicing its global clients, besides tapping the domestic market. The company is also planning to open two more centres in India in 2007.