Visa to buy online processor CyberSource

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Visa Inc said on Wednesday that it has agreed to buy CyberSource Corp , a technology company that processes online payments, in a bid to increase its e-commerce business.

Visa, the world's largest credit and debit card processor, will pay $26 a share, or about $2 billion, for CyberSource.

The deal, which is expected to close in Visa's fiscal fourth quarter, will dilute its earnings for that quarter by about 4 cents to 5 cents a share.

CyberSource, which has an 11-year partnership with Visa, currently helps process about 25 percent of all online commerce transactions in the United States. Its 295,000 merchant clients include British Airways , Home Depot , Facebook and Google .

Visa said the deal would increase the amount of online payments it processes and the resulting business for its client banks, which issue Visa credit and debit cards.

E-commerce is an area of increasing focus and competition for Visa and its rival MasterCard Inc , as more consumers shift their shopping habits online, often to competitors such as eBay Inc's PayPal unit.

Last week Ajay Banga, who will become MasterCard's next chief executive in July, also named innovation in e-commerce and other new types of payment technology as priorities for the company (nN12177969). MasterCard said is has created a new global research-and-development arm to work on such innovation.

CyberSource's president and chief executive, Michael Walsh, is expected to remain with Visa and continue to oversee his company's operations after the deal closes.

(Reporting by Maria Aspan, editing by Maureen Bavdek)

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