VeriFone Systems has effectively withdrawn from the race for supremacy in the mobile payments processing war. Yielding to the market dominance of Square and PayPal – the two top players in mobile payments – reports surfaced Friday that VeriFone Systems now considers the market “unprofitable.”
David Talach, VeriFone’s vice president of industry engagement, was cited in a Bloomberg report this morning indicating that his company “is moving away from competing directly” with the aforementioned titans of the mobile payment game.
Instead of promoting its SAIL attachment, which lets smartphones accept debit and credit card payments, to merchants, VeriFone will offer the tool to banks for them to resell to their business customers.
VeriFone also confirmed that some assets related to SAIL will be divested. The company is “exploring opportunities with potential third parties.”
“We had good uptake, but I wouldn’t say it blew our socks off,” Talach said. “We are morphing SAIL, pivoting to a channel alliance strategy.”
