VeriFone buys stake in RF SIM supplier

VeriFone Holdings has announced that it is co-lead investor in a reverse merger financing for Trunkbow International Holdings Ltd, a Chinese mobile payments and value-added service applications company specialising in 2.4GHz (RF SIM) NFC solutions.

VeriFone invested $5 million of the approximately US$22.5 million raised, giving the company an 8.6% stake. The transaction values Trunkbow at a post-money valuation of $65 million and Albert Liu, VeriFone senior vice president and general counsel, has now joined the company’s board of directors.

VeriFone has also been named the preferred supplier of payment systems technology to Trunkbow and says some 125,000 mobile payment terminals integrated with Trunkbow’s 2.4 GHz technology are expected to be deployed over the next three years.

“It is clear that mobile phones are increasingly playing an active role in the initiation of payment transactions, both within the existing payments infrastructure and also with telecommunications carriers like China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom,” says Douglas G Bergeron, CEO of VeriFone. “VeriFone’s investment in Trunkbow provides us with a seat at the table for cell phone payments in the world’s largest cell phone market.”

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