The payments industry fell -0.42 percent on the stock market this week as the POS equipment/software, acquirer/processor and network industries all lost value.
VeriFone Systems was the biggest loser on the week, dropping -9.09 percent after announcing that it would be pulling out of the mobile payments industry and ceasing to offer its SAIL platform. VeriFone CEO Doug Bergeron characterized micro-merchant acquiring as “fundamentally unprofitable,” and noted the positive results from his company’s GlobalBAY and PAYware Mobile solutions. The share price closed at $29.60 on Friday.
As an industry, the POS equipment/software segment lost -2.90 percent of its value, as NCR Corporation, MICROS Systems and USA Technologies all performed poorly this week. Ingenico served as the industry’s lone bright point, gaining 6.30 percent to jump to $42.37.
Remittance companies enjoyed the most success as an industry, jumping 1.88 percent on the back of nearly identical gains from MoneyGram International (1.82 percent) and Western Union (1.81 percent). The two companies now sit at share prices of $12.34 and 13.11, respectively.
The biggest overall winner on the week was TNS Inc. The company’s price jumped a whopping 41.65 percent to $20.78 amid news that its sale to Siris Capital Group is under investigation, and that the $21.00 price per share offered to shareholders should perhaps run as high as $27.50.
