Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
• Automaker Volkswagen AG has acquired PayByPhone Technologies Inc., according to press reports. A unit of U.K.-based payments processor PayPoint plc, Vancouver-based PayByPhone offers a platform for mobile payments for parking and claims 12.5 million users in North America, Europe, and Australia. The company handles more than $300 million in parking payments annually, according to its Web site. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
• Puerto Rico-based shoe-store chain Novus Inc. announced an expansion into the United States, including a mobile-payments service set to debut next month.
• Bank of America Corp. will continue to be the exclusive ATM provider at Charlotte Douglas International Airport, a major East Coast hub that has 14 BofA ATMs, under the bank’s newly extended, three-year contract with the city of Charlotte, N.C. The bank will pay the city an annual fee of $1.6 million and 75 cents from each transaction fee it collects, according to The Charlotte Observer.
• Dow Jones & Co.’s MarketWatch investor Web site lists Internet-connected refrigerators among 10 items consumers should not buy in 2017, saying the appliances are much more expensive than conventional refrigerators and vulnerable to hackers. Mastercard Inc. and electronics giant Samsung earlier this year demonstrated the Family Hub smart refrigerator; a data-security firm that tested it said it had only minor security flaws.
• Mobile financial-services technology provider Mobetize Corp. expanded its smartCharge feature for telecommunications companies, which now allows their customers to top-up or send air time to friends and family around the world through Mobetize’s network of 350-plus global carriers. The new gifting/top-up service is available in three Central American countries.
