Midwest Payment Systems won a lucrative contract to process debit card transactions for 1,350 Amoco gasoline and convenience stores.
The Amoco deal represents Midwest Payment's entree into the fast-growing field of processing transactions for petroleum companies.
With this deal, Amoco becomes one of Midwest Payment's largest-volume customers. Midwest Payment's merchant base also includes Walgreen Co., Kroger Co., and Office Depot.
"We expect Amoco alone to generate about 10 million transactions per year for us," said Roberta Jennings, a spokeswoman for Fifth Third Bancorp, the Cincinnati-based parent company of Midwest Payment.
"Amoco is in its infancy in debit POS, which puts us in the great position to help them grow this very important business," she added.
Midwest Payment will be providing the processing services for 1,350 Amoco locations in Florida, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, New York, and Washington, D.C.
Amoco Corp., based in Chicago, has about 4,000 retail locations throughout the East, Southeast, and Midwest.
"We were impressed with Midwest Payment's flexibility," said Sherry Bowden, Amoco's brand manager in charge of payment systems.
Midwest Payment's "expansion capabilities make the arrangement a good fit," she added.
Amoco's first move into accepting debit cards for payment was in 1992 through a deal with Cash Station, an electronic banking network based in Chicago.
Amoco does not use a third-party merchant processor for the Chicago transactions.
Midwest Payment's contract with Amoco is for four years. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Midwest Payment will immediately begin helping Amoco to install point of sale terminals in the 1,350 locations covered by the contract. Ms. Jennings said the companies expect to have all the locations on-line by February 1996.
