1990s: Expansion into new markets
Verifone went public in March 1990, raising more than $54 million. As the credit card industry matured, Verifone pushed to install its systems into new markets, such as restaurants, movie theaters, and taxis,[21][22][23] as well as developing software capacity to bring its systems into the health care and health insurance markets and to government functions. International sales also began to build, as use of credit cards became increasingly accepted in foreign markets. VeriFone was also building its global operation, opening facilities in Bangalore, Singapore, England, Dallas, and Ft. Lauderdale, in addition to its Hawaii and California facilities. Rolling out its Gemstone line of transaction systems, which added inventory control, pricing, and other capabilities, Verifone was aided by announcements from Visa and MasterCard that the companies would no longer provide printed warning bulletins, while requiring merchants to seek authorization for all credit card transactions by 1994.
Revenues jumped from $155 million in 1990 to $226 million in 1992. Verifone had just placed its two millionth system a year ago. By 1993, Verifone systems were in place in more than 70 countries, including its three millionth system, in Brazil, representing the company's expansion in the Latin American market. International sales, which had contributed less than ten percent of revenues before 1990, now accounted for more than 30 percent of the company's nearly $259 million in annual revenues.
Banks began rolling out debit cards in the mid-1990s.[24] In response, Verifone produced terminals designed with keypads for PIN numbers. But as the domestic credit and debit card markets neared saturation, Verifone changed its primary focus to producing software applications, offering vertically integrated systems, including applications for standard computer operating systems. It also built a new plant near Shanghai in China in 1994 to increase production capacity.
Verifone moved to take the lead in the coming smart card revolution, teaming up with Gemplus International, a France-based maker of the cards, and MasterCard International to form the joint venture SmartCash.[25] To place the company close to technological developments in France and the rest of Europe, Verifone opened its Paris research and development center in 1994. The company launched its smart card in May 1995. The company introduced its Personal ATM, a palm-sized smart card reader capable of reading a variety of smart card formats, in September 1996, with the product expected to ship in 1997. Among the first customers already signed to support the P-ATM were American Express, MasterCard International, GTE, Mondex International, Visa International, Wells Fargo Bank, and Sweden's Sparbanken Bank. Contracts for each called for the purchase of a minimum of 100,000 units; the total market potential for the device was estimated at more than 100 million households. In addition, Verifone began developing smart card readers to supplement and eventually replace its five million credit and debit card authorization systems.
In 1995, Verifone began the first of its aggressive steps to enter an entirely new area, that of Internet-based transactions. In May 1995, the company partnered with Broadvision Inc., a developer of Internet, interactive television, computer network, and other software, to couple Verifone's Virtual Terminal software—a computer-based version of its standard transaction terminal—with BroadVision's offerings, thereby extending Verifone's products beyond the retail counter for the first time.[26] In August 1995, however, Verifone took an even bigger step into the Internet transaction arena, with its $28 million acquisition of Enterprise Integration Technologies, developer of the S-HTTP industry standard for safeguarding transactions over the World Wide Web. Verifone followed that acquisition with a $4 million investment in William Melton's latest venture, CyberCash Inc., also working to develop Internet transaction systems.
By 1996, Verifone was ready with its Payment Transaction Application Layer (PTAL) lineup of products, including the Virtual terminal interface for merchants conducting sales with consumers; Internet Gateway or vGATE, to conduct transactions between merchants and financial institutions; and the Pay Window interface for consumers making purchases on the Internet. After securing agreements from Netscape, Oracle, and Microsoft to include Verifone software in their web browsers, Verifone and Microsoft announced in August 1996 that Verifone's virtual point of sale (vPOS) would be included in the Microsoft Merchant System to be released by the end of the year. Verifone's announcement of the P-ATM, able to be attached as a computer peripheral, wedded the company's smart card and Internet transaction efforts.
Hewlett-Packard acquired Verifone in a $1.18bn stock-swap deal in April 1997.[27] Four years later Verifone was sold to Gores Technology Group in May 2001. In 2002 Verifone was recapitalized by GTCR Golder Rauner, LLC. In 2005, Verifone was listed as a public company on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: PAY).[28][29][30][31]
