International Verifact Inc. of Toronto said it has signed a major contract with the Ontario government to supply point of sale terminals for a modernization of its payment system.
In a project reminiscent of some of the Clinton administration's "reinventing government" proposals, Verifact agreed to deliver up to 5,000 devices in the initial phases to provincial government office locations to streamline payment processing.
Although it is in the second tier of transaction terminal suppliers in the United States, behind Verifone Inc. and Hypercom Inc., Verifact is a major force in Canada and a leading supplier to the banks' Interac debit card network.
Interac has some 4.7 million active cardholders who performed 25.9 million transactions in December, more than double the 10.3 million in December 1993.
As vendor of record for the Ontario program, Verifact said it will supply terminals and software to handle both financial authorizations and a new series of health care cards.
"The new debit-credit terminals will process transactions electronically and reduce the internal accounting and handling of fee-type transactions," said Steve Zolnierczyk, an Ontario telecommunications services official.
"They could also be used to provide validation and verification of health cards, driver's licenses, etc.," he said.
Verifact said rollouts will begin in the spring. One of the first agencies on the system will be the Ministry of the Attorney General, accepting debit and credit cards in place of cash and checks.
Through an alliance with Research in Motion of Cambridge, Ontario, IVI said it is developing a wireless terminal that could extend the system to police departments and ambulance services.
The Ontario contract is for $3 million over a three-year period, with a two-year renewable option. International Verifact's annual revenues, including those of Soricon Inc. of Boulder, Colo., with which it recently merged, exceed $35 million.
Verifact said that with the aid of research and development funding from the Ontario government, its revenues have tripled over three years. Amid growing demand for its secure payment technology from the United States, Taiwan, Sweden, Saudi Arabia, and Korea, the company has outsourced its manufacturing to three plants in Ontario.
Verifact has moved its U.S. headquarters, formerly in Scottsdale, Ariz., to Soricon's facility in Colorado.
