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Rivalry in the highly competitive restaurant POS systems market got even hotter Monday as PNC Financial Group Inc., announced its acquisition of Linga, a provider of point-of-sale systems for the restaurant and hospitality industry, for an undisclosed sum.
The deal will enable PNC to better serve its clients in the hospitality industry, the big bank says. But it will also catapult the bank into a hotly competitive market that includes such providers as Lightspeed POS, Revel, Toast, and TouchBistro. The market has also attracted major payments processors such as Shift4 Payments Inc.
PNC will not disclose the size of Linga’s merchant portfolio or how many restaurants the bank serves currently. The Pittsburgh-based financial institution operates 2,600 branches in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
Linga’s POS system is a cloud-based solution that includes such features as online ordering, payments, QR code-based menus, and virtual kiosks.
“Linga offers a robust suite of competitive capabilities that supports PNC’s payments growth strategy and represents an opportunity for the bank to enhance its capabilities in the hospitality and restaurant industry,” says a spokesperson for the bank in response to queries from Digital Transactions News. “PNC has been piloting the sale of Linga’s products to restaurant clients in specific markets with great success. The bank has found that Linga’s proprietary solutions are complementary to its competitive treasury-management platform, and with the acquisition, the bank will now have access to Linga’s full suite of products. PNC will be focused on introducing the solution set to additional markets across its coast-to-coast footprint to provide restaurant and retail clients with the tools they need to keep up with … consumer expectations.”
Founded in 2004, Linga has developed POS systems for specific segments of the restaurant and hospitality industry, such as full-service and quick-service restaurants, pizza parlors, coffee shops, and cigar lounges. Its pricing starts at $19.99 per month for a basic package and runs as high as $89.99 per month for an enterprise deployment.
“As we’ve worked with PNC over the last several years, we’ve had incredible success with our combined payments capabilities and we look forward to continuing this strategic collaboration as we move forward together,” Linga chief executive and founder Onur Haytac says in a prepared statement.
Under the terms of the acquisition, Haytac, as well as Linga’s existing management team and the company’s employees in the United States and Canada, will continue to operate out of the company’s Naples, Fla., and Toronto offices. Linga will also continue to manage its portfolio of channel partners and clients.
