Payments technology company Visa Inc. is looking to help its merchant customers connect with more consumers and drive greater loyalty with the acquisition of TrialPay.
A privately held company based in Mountain View, Calif., TrialPay offers a monetization platform that connects merchants with consumers through targeted promotions. The technology will be integrated into Visa’s own product portfolio and offered to Visa’s merchant customers as a way to reach Visa cardholders with targeted offers in order to acquire customers, drive traffic and increase sales.
Under the Evergreen brand, TrialPay offers a host of monetization and acquisition solutions including Engage, which seeks to acquire new users at key points within other apps and games. The solutions are all designed to integrate with a company’s existing marketing and advertising suppliers.
According to Visa, which says it’s committed to building deeper merchant relationships, TrialPay’s technology will also give merchants more timely and valuable customer insights through Visa’s data and analytics solutions.
“This acquisition aligns with Visa’s strategy to work more closely with merchants, developing solutions that help them to grow their businesses and build stronger customer relationships,” said Ramon Martin, senior vice-president, merchant sales and solutions with Visa, in a statement. “TrialPay will strengthen our loyalty and offers platform, which we expect to become a strategic and competitive differentiator that can help merchants build customer loyalty and increase sales in both the digital and physical retail environments.”
The TrialPay acquisition is subject to closing conditions and regulatory approval, and is expected to be complete in Visa’s third quarter of 2015. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Visa also used the Mobile World Congress in Spain this week to partner with smartphone vendor Samsung. Users of Samsung’s new Galaxy S6 smartphone in the U.S. will be able to make secure Visa payments with the Samsung Pay payment service when it launches this summer. Samsung Pay uses Visa Token Service technology, which replaces sensitive payment account information found on plastic cards, such as the 16-digit account number, with a unique series of numbers that can be used to authorize payment without exposing actual account details.
“Working in partnership with Samsung, we are able to bring secure mobile payments to millions of consumers around the world,” said Ryan McInerney, global president for Visa, in a statement. “Combining Visa’s expertise in payment technology with Samsung’s global leadership in creating innovative mobile experiences gives more choice to financial institutions who want to enable their customers to pay with the new generation of mobile devices.”
