Payments company Smartpay is selling its New Zealand business to focus on development of its local operation, which includes a recent move into acquiring.
The company announced yesterday that it had reached a binding agreement with US payments company Verifone Inc, which will buy the New Zealand business and assets for NZ$70 million cash.
The deal will need NZ Commerce Commission clearance and shareholder approval.
Smartpay will retain its Australian business, its Retail Radio business in Australia and NZ and its Alipay and WeChat businesses in Australia and NZ.
The NZ business made up the bulk of the company’s revenue in 2018/19, accounting for A$18.5 million out of total revenue of $21.1 million.
However, the company sees the NZ operations as mature and believes there are greater growth opportunities in Australia.
The company has a terminal fleet of 4000, up from 1500 in November last year. It is processing A$1 billion of point of sale payments (on an annualised basis) and it says revenue is now around $1 million a month.
According to the chair’s report in the latest annual report: “Our initiative to provide an end-to-end EFTPOS solution in Australia through the addition of our own acquiring capability in the last year has been successfully implemented and the company is well underway in its objective to property commercialise acquiring and other options to add value to Smartpay.”
The company also released its half-year result yesterday. For the six months to September revenue was up 32 per cent to $13.4 million, compared with the previous corresponding period.
Australian acquiring income was $3.8 million – a 530 per cent increase over the prior period.
The company made a loss of $739,000. Cash flow was positive, at $3.3 million.