HPS to acquire ICPS in Mauritius, bolsters its processing activities in Africa

By Pavithra R

Hightech Payment Systems Group (HPS), a multinational provider of payment solutions, has announced entering into a definitive agreement to acquire all outstanding shares of ICPS from the Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB) Group. The acquisition is subject to suspensive clauses and the approval of the concerned authorities. 

Founded in 2008, Mauritius based ICPS was established a subsidiary of the MCB Group. It is a joint venture of the MCB Group and Hightech Payment Systems and has a rich portfolio of more than 30 clients in 22 countries in Africa and Asia including MCB. 

Unlike other service providers and third-party processors, ICPS is a member bank processing centre. It provides a state of art technology in Switching and Card Management Systems, enabling banks to achieve economies of scale in outsourcing their processing activities. The company offers payment processing services for banks and other FIs as well as telecom operators. Its activities cover hosting of more than 6 mn cards, driving of more than 600 ATMs and 11,000 point of sale (POS) terminals, and processes more than 10 mn transactions per month.

The firm supports its clients along all the payment value chain, including the implementation and maintenance of business processes, payment data security standards (PCI DSS), and training and consultancy on the best practices in the industry. ICPS offering is based on HPS PowerCARD technology. Therefore, the line of activities of ICPS is expected to integrate the overall HPS Processing offering seamlessly.

Through the acquisition, HPS aims to position itself as a major payment player in Africa and consolidate HPS’s processing offer on the continent, where the combined presence of the 2 companies will extend to more than 30 countries. The union will also have a definite impact on operational costs, resulting in significant economies of scale.

The acquisition is in line with the external growth strategy of HPS group, which began with the purchase of the company acpqualife in France in 2010, the taking over of the switching activity in Morocco in 2016, and continued through to the acquisition of the company IPRC in January 2021.