VeriFone to Upgrade PayLife System (AXP) (DFS) (MA) (PAY) (V)

VeriFone provides electronic payment system solutions for the financial, retail, hospitality, petroleum, transportation, government and health care markets.

PayLife is a collaboration between major banks, which provides card acceptance services to companies across the retail environment, the oil industry and the tourism and service sectors.

As per the agreement, PayLife will also deploy a number of VeriFone QX 1000 devices to provide immediate replacement or upgrade of existing devices.

The agreement with VeriFone will enable PayLife to replace its existing installed payment systems with the new VeriFone systems that feature integrated contactless with Near Field Communication (NFC) support and are designed to meet the latest PCI PTS 3.0, ZKA, Europay, MasterCard and VISA (EMV) and Austrian security requirements.

Back in September 2006, the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) was formed by American Express (AXP), Discover Financial Services (DFS), JCB, MasterCard (MA) and Visa International (V).

The prime motive behind these standards was to oversee and unify industry standards in the areas of payment card data security, referred to as the PCI standards.

Over the last two years, VeriFone has been focusing on transforming its business in response to the rapidly evolving needs of customers, retailers and payment innovators across the world. The company aims to offer a managed service that can easily accept all existing payment types, including the evolving alternative and mobile payment methods being offered by Google and PayPal, Groupon, Isis, Visa, MasterCard and American Express.

There is a global trend toward electronic payment transactions, away from cash and checks. This trend has been accelerated by the use of credit and debit card as a mode of payment, especially PIN-based debit. VeriFone is further focusing on payments-as-a-service as it continues to offer encryption services, content and advertising, gateway services, e-commerce capabilities and cloud-based retail application processing, which provides it with an edge over its competitors.

PayLife selected VeriFone for its innovative and consumer friendly payment solutions. VeriFone, in turn will accommodate all the card types, which are accepted by PayLife.

VeriFone continues to impress on the back of strategic acquisitions and growing high margin services mix in its revenue stream. We continue to maintain our Neutral recommendation on VeriFone in the long run. Our recommendation is supported by a Zacks #3 Rank, which translates into a short-term rating of Hold.