In announcing during the past week a deal to provide terminals capable of accepting mobile payments at hypermarkets in the Czech Republic and the acquisition of a terminal-servicing company in Italy, Ingenico SA flexed its muscles in the wake of the recent acquisition by VeriFone Systems Inc. of most of Hypercom Corp.’s non-U.S. assets, an industry analyst says.
Ingenico will partner with Globus CR k.s. hypermarkets to provide terminals for a six-month mobile-payment pilot, the first of its kind in Czech Republic, the French terminal maker announced Aug. 26.
Three days later, Ingenico revealed it had acquired Tnet Centro Servizi Monetici Srl, an Italian company that specializes in servicing payment terminals.
“Europe’s terminal market will always be the main focus for Ingenico, but this also is a good response to VeriFone after it bought a lot of Hypercom’s markets,” Zil Bareisis, a London-based senior analyst with research firm Celent, tells PaymentsSource. “I am not surprised Ingenico was ready to move into new markets, and it just shows how they’ve been strengthened.”
VeriFone completed its deal to acquire the Hypercom operations Aug. 4. (
In a move to ease any concerns about antitrust violations, VeriFone and Hypercom agreed last April to sell to Ingenico the U.S.-based Hypercom operations (
In the Czech Republic, patrons of the large markets, which resemble a combination of grocery supermarkets and a department stores under one roof, will wave a mobile phone with an imbedded Near Field Communication chip over the Ingenico Telium terminal to make purchases costing 20 euros (US$29) or less. The Telium terminals also contain NFC chips.
Patrons will need Telefonica Europe PLC phones, and account information from credit cards issued through Citibank Europe PLC or Komercni Banka, Czech Republic’s commercial bank, according to Ingenico.
The mobile-payment terminal will support a change in customer-payment behavior in seeking a faster way to make smaller purchases, Ingenico spokesperson Remi Calvert tells PaymentsSource.
“With contactless payment, small purchase amounts do not require the customer to enter a PIN code, as would be the case with a bigger purchase amount,” Calvert says.
Ingenico would not comment on its market penetration, but Calvert says the terminal agreement involving deployments at 14 Globus hypermarkets strengthens the company’s presence in Czech Republic, he says.
In Italy, the acquisition of Tnet Centro Servizi Monetici Srl will enable Ingenico to expand its technical-service offerings to a base of nearly 300,000 terminals deployed in the country through the operations department of Ingenico Italy, the company stated in a press release.
Ingenico generally operates from a position of strength when it consummates new pilot deals or acquires competitors, Bareisis believes.
“There are many NFC pilots out there, but many are focused on the issuing side, to get phones in the hands of people. And all of the companies have different strategies,” Bareisis says. “The terminal makers are all giants in the industry, but Ingenico is a very strong company, not a newcomer to this. It does not surprise me that this is just business as usual for them piloting a new market and in buying another [competitor] or two on occasion.”
Ingenico last month reported double-digit revenue increases for the first half of 2011, citing movement into new markets and continued strengthening of its core business in Europe (
What do you think about this? Send us your feedback.
