In a Bloomberg article, VeriFone’s CEO Doug Bergeron makes it very clear that he’s all about expanding VeriFone’s opportunities in both emerging markets and in new (i.e. mobile) payment technologies. Declaring that he’s willing to spend upwards of $1 billion annually to ensure his company’s growth prospects places a sizable marker for the rest of the payments industry to follow.
VeriFone has been diversifying its revenue streams for a few years now and this latest discussion affirms that transaction revenue, whether in payments services or commerce applications, is very much on the table. The acquisition of a payments processor in an emerging market sounds like a distinct possibility.
To provide more services to merchants, VeriFone could also acquire one of more than 100 payment processors in countries where credit card penetration is still low and is just starting to rise, Robertson said. These companies have close relationships with merchants, and could help VeriFone offer features such as coupons, daily deals, prepaid cards and loyalty programs, Robertson said.
“Everyone is trying to figure out the intersection of payments and commerce vis-a-vis mobile devices,” Robertson said. “It’s there where I am sure acquisitions are going to happen. It’s logical for them to want more pieces of the transaction pie.”
In the alternate link to an All Things D post, the author describes VeriFone as a maker of electronic cash registers. In reality, VeriFone is a payments terminal maker, not a cash register builder. But, with competitors like Square building attractive cash register-like software, who knows? If VeriFone is willing to compete across the payments value chain, merchant facing software has to be on the table.
