USA Technologies Inc., a payments service provider to vending machine operators, is aiming to get more merchants connected to its services through a partnership with Verizon Wireless.
The companies said Tuesday that Verizon Wireless will be an option for USA Technologies' clients for supporting the wireless card acceptance devices that USA gives its merchants. Currently, USA Technologies has a relationship with AT&T Inc.
Through its partnership with Verizon Wireless, USA Technologies expects to rapidly expand its customer base because the carrier will offer USA's services to its own business customers.
"For a company like USA Technologies, that [Verizon Wireless pact] extends our reach dramatically," Stephen Herbert, the president and chief operating officer of the Malvern, Pa., company, said in an interview.
With ePort Connect, merchants get a wireless card reader, a merchant acquiring account and other services to accept card payments at remote locations, such as vending machines, Herbert said. USA Technologies' other clients include commercial laundry businesses and factory equipment makers.
"One of the things that they're getting is freedom of choice," Herbert said. "If they prefer one carrier over the other, they can choose it or … if they have an existing arrangement" with one carrier they can "leverage that buying power."
At Dec. 31, the company had 109,000 connections to its USALive Network, representing individual devices, he said.
Herbert said Verizon Wireless and USA Technologies are also planning to add new features to the ePort Connect Service, but would not discuss them in detail.
A spokesman for Verizon Wireless did not return a call for comment on Tuesday. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture between Verizon Communications Inc. and Vodafone Group PLC, will use its Machine to Machine Management Center to help expand the service.
Through the partnership, the companies will be able to "offer a cost-effective, turnkey solution to" business customers "looking to improve efficiencies and grow sales by leveraging [machine-to-machine] applications that capitalize on the rapidly expanding market for non-cash-payment services," Mario Turco, the regional president for Verizon Wireless in Philadelphia, said in a press release.
