April 22, 2010 - 11:58 AM ET

Visa Inc. agreed to acquire e-payment company CyberSource Corp. for about $2 billion to grow its online payment, mobile payment, fraud and security capabilities. Under the CyberSource and Authorize.Net brands, CyberSource in 2009 processed $120 billion or about 25 percent of all e-commerce transaction dollars in the United States for 295,000 merchants. Visa and CyberSource have partnered for more than a decade and Visa executives said they studied the acquisition potential for one year. Visa executives said the acquisition supports its five-year strategic plan and the financial model "assumes the current acquiring business to evolve to more of a referral model ... and Visa Europe will work with CyberSource as a service provider through a reseller agreement." The deal is subject to regulatory review and officials expect to close it by September.