Pay By Touch expands into loyalty and cheques

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By: Wise Marketer Staff |

Posted on December 8, 2005

Pay By Touch expands into loyalty and cheques

The US-based biometric payment provider Pay By Touch has acquired reward programme outsourcing firm Capture Resource Inc., and has agreed to acquire biometric cheque-cashing service provider BioPay LLC.

Pay By Touch says the deal is actually worth US$47 million in stock and cash - a figure that was officially revised by Pay By Touch just a few days day after its initial public announcement in which the deal was quoted as being worth US$82 million.

  DevelopmentPay By Touch is to begin offering interactive gift and reward programmesPay By Touch will now assume responsibility for all of Capture Resource's assets and will manage the company's 120 million-plus consumer loyalty enrolment profiles, including more than 12,000 supermarkets and retailers. Pay By Touch will also begin offering interactive gift and reward programmes, customised reporting, design, production, and web access services to its retail clients, in addition to payment processing and database management services already provided.

Pay By Touch has service agreements with two of the top five US grocers, and claims 55 of the nation's top 100 retailers as customers, with 7,000 retail stores under contract for its biometric payments service. The company's loyalty offerings aim to help retailers maximise customer lifetime value (CLV) by increasing consumer shopping frequency, average basket size, and customer retention on a one-to-one marketing basis. The company's core growth areas currently include grocery store chains, credit card issuers, healthcare providers, and financial transaction processing companies.

Rewards cards Capture Resource is essentially a data capture service provider, originally specialising in the processing of high volume, time-sensitive forms and documents in a secure environment. Capture Resource announced its acquisition of Catalina Marketing Corporation's card and data-entry services division (Reward Card Solutions) in March 2004. Until then, the company had serviced 99% of the division's data entry requirements (see 27 Mar. 2004). It was this acquisition that allowed the company to begin providing end-to-end solutions for reward and gift card programmes.

According to John Rogers, chairman and CEO for Pay By Touch, "Capture Resource's intellectual property, customisable loyalty programmes, technology and consumer-friendly kiosks will bring significant value to Pay By Touch and will help continue to grow our loyalty offering."

Biometric cheque cashing Pay By Touch has continued an aggressive expansion programme by announcing an agreement to acquire BioPay, which currently claims to have 2 million enrolled consumers, 1,600 retail implementations across 42 US states, and more than US$7 billion in processed transactions to-date. The acquisition is expected to be completed within a matter of weeks, subject to normal contractual closing conditions and regulatory approvals.

Under the terms of the agreement, Pay By Touch expects to acquire all assets of BioPay, including its patent portfolio, and assume responsibility for its retail customers and enrolled members. Both companies' retail clients will eventually have integrated access to their combined products and services. Rogers commented: "BioPay has perfected its cheque cashing solution, and Pay By Touch is making inroads in in-lane payments. We are hand in glove."

For additional information: ·  Visit Pay By Touch at http://www.paybytouch.com ·  Visit Capture Resource at http://www.captureresource.com ·  Visit BioPay at http://www.biopay.com