Mobile payments turf war intensifies as Verifone acquires Point for for $1B+

Verifone has acquired European alternative payments provider Point, in an effort to broaden its range of mobile payment services for merchants and retailers, the company announced today.

Among its many payment offerings, Verifone makes near field communications (NFC) terminals that allow customers to swipe phones and payment cards at the point of sale to complete a purchase. Verifone is paying $816 million (600 million euros) for all Point equity and assets, and will be paying an additional $231 million (170 million euros) to settle outstanding Point debts.

Point is based in Stockholm and serves more than 450,000 merchant customers in 11 countries. Point, which handles point-of-sale transactions, conducts more than 10 million transactions per day. The acquisition should give Verifone a toehold in its battle against alternative and mobile payment services such as PayPal, Google, as well as large credit card companies such as Visa.

As AllThingsD has reported, Verifone has been on a tear of late, spending more than $1 billion per year to acquire smaller payment services providers. With the acquisition of Point, Verifone hopes to build the world’s largest infrastructure for rapid mobile payments. In a release accompanying the announcement, Verifone said it expects the acquisition of Point to add $260 million to its bottom line within the next 12 months.

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