Global Payments touts Genius gains

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Dive Brief:

• Global Payments is finding traction with its Genius point-of-sale solution among Worldpay’s larger restaurant customers as the companies have begun cross-selling their products, Global Payments Chief Executive Cameron Bready said Wednesday.

• Consumer spending remained “healthy” in the first quarter, although volumes were negatively affected by airline customers in the Middle East due to the Iran war and “slightly lower IRS payment volumes” attributed to the income tax law enacted last year, Bready told analysts during a quarterly earnings call. Impacts from the war will be “modest and transitory,” he said.

• Global Payments’ first quarter adjusted net revenue rose 5.5% to $2.86 billion, accounting for the Worldpay acquisition and excluding the issuer solutions business and others that Global Payments sold, according to the earnings report.

Dive Insight:

In January, Global Payments completed its $24 billion acquisition of Worldpay, a deal aimed at making the Atlanta-based company a pure-play payments processor handling about $3.7 trillion in annual payment volume for merchants in 175 countries. Worldpay’s financial technology enables payments, and includes a network of about 6,000 bank branches.

Global Payments will integrate Genius, which it debuted a year ago, into Worldpay’s financial institution partner channel as “a key priority” to drive higher revenues, Bready said Wednesday. Global Payments touts the POS system as a flexible solution adaptable to the needs of varied merchants, from restaurants to sports stadiums to contractors and small service businesses.

Later this year, Global Payments will release Genius Mobile in the U.S., which Chief Operating Officer Bob Cortopassi described as “a version that is slightly slimmer in terms of both its device footprint and its feature functionality that’s designed to be easier to use and more general purpose.”

The company also has a version of Genius suited for service businesses that need scheduling and invoice capabilities, Cortopassi said Wednesday.

Global Payments has launched Genius in Austria and Germany, with additional countries planned later this year and next, the CEO said without identifying any. The POS system’s international expansion will begin contributing financially next year, he said. 

Worldpay’s U.S. salesforce “began selling Genius almost immediately following the close” of the sale, Bready said, to address what he called “a longstanding product gap” in that company’s portfolio.