Mozido Buys PagoVision, Gaining Merchant Base for New Mobile Wallet, Commerce Services (January 8, 2013)
January 8, 2013
Mozido LLC, a startup that made its mark with cloud-based, white-label mobile payments services for banks and merchants, is moving into new territory with its acquisition of PagoVision Inc., which provides check-cashing services to unbanked and immigrant consumers through a network of 1,500 U.S. merchants. The move brings PagoVision’s robust array of offerings, including check-cashing services, reloadable Visa prepaid cards, a bill-payment network of 5,000 billers and mobile telephone top-up services under the technology firm’s roof. It also expands the field of potential merchant customers Mozido hopes to target with its mobile wallet plus new mobile commerce offerings, including loyalty and customized shopping applications.
By acquiring PagoVision, Mozido “gains a set of merchants that fit their target market, providing them with an initial proving ground for their products,” Rick Oglesby, a senior analyst with Aite Group, tells Paybefore. Austin, Texas-based Mozido early last year introduced its Genius Wallet, a versatile mobile wallet it offers on a co-branded basis to partners, including MoneyGram International. The deal will give Mozido “a strategic foundation upon which they can build out the rest of their U.S. strategy and simultaneously begin to generate consumer enrollment in their wallet solution,” Oglesby notes.
Absorbing Cedar Park, Texas-based PagoVision “complements Mozido’s expertise in serving the economically disenfranchised,” said Greg Corona, Mozido’s president and CEO. But Mozido also plans to “mobilize all consumers up the financial ecosystem,” he added. For PagoVision, the deal enables it to expand its offerings to include global remittance services, as well as top-ups for domestic and international mobile carriers and remote deposit check capture, said Mitch Dillard, PagoVision co-founder, who will continue to lead the subsidiary. Existing PagoVision merchants may add incremental profit and revenues by deploying Mozido’s “innovative mobile payments and marketing solutions” that include rewards and price-matching tools, Dillard says. The companies did not disclose the deal’s terms.
