CHENNAI, INDIA: Polaris Software, which caters to the banking, financial services and insurance space, is acquiring Laser Soft Infosystems, a competitor, for Rs.52 crore ($11 million) in a cash deal.

The Rs.1,377 crore Polaris officially intimated the deal in a regulatory filing with the bourses Thursday. Promoted by Suresh B. Kamath, Laser Soft, which was established in 1986, also offers a wide range of solutions to the banking industry.

As per the terms of the agreement, Rs. 35 crore will be paid in cash on closing and the balance amount will be paid out in 2 years contingent to performance, and will be funded entirely through internal accruals, said a press release.

"This acquisition is in line with our stated Polaris 3.0 vision of achieving market leadership in Financial Technology through focus on account expansion and Intellect expansion," said Arun Jain, Founder, Chairman & CEO, Polaris Software Lab Ltd.

" Together we will bring a robust and complementary solution-set that is uniquely suitable for emerging markets and will support our market proliferation plan. With this merger we are also expanding our strategic capacity by 600 banking and technology experts," he added.

Suresh Kamath, founder and managing director, Laser Soft Infosystems said the merger is highly synergistic in its focus of domain, strength of complementing solutions and organization ethos.

"Over the last 23 years, we have successfully evangelized robust products for banking and financial services space and deployed them at more than 50 leading banks in emerging countries. At this inflection point in our growth journey, we were looking for a partner who is large and deeply entrenched in Banking and Financial services and can help us with investments and strong market connects," he said.