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Cabcharge Australia Ltd. will buy as many as 20,000 point-of-sale terminals from San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone Holdings Inc., VeriFone announced today. The companies called the agreement a multimillion-dollar deal but declined to be more specific. The terminals accept chip and magnetic stripe cards and come equipped with contactless readers for possible use with Near Field Communication devices, such as mobile phones, that can initiate payments. VeriFone says Cabcharge has transaction-processing contracts with some 400 Australian taxi companies that manage about 18,000 taxis. The terminals are part of Cabcharge's new payment system, which Cabcharge will start installing in taxis in October and complete by December 2009, VeriFone says. Cabcharge says it generated AUS$44.4 million (US$38.8 million) in revenues from its taxi-payment systems during the first six months of this year, a 13.6% increase from the $39 million during the same period in 2007. VeriFone also supplies payment terminals for taxis in the U.S. cities of New York and Philadelphia.
