AFR today - MYOB Joins Payment Systems Race

From Fin Review today..

MYOB is considering integrating web-based cash register Kounta with its Mint Wireless-backed mobile payment device in an effort to corner the highly contested small business payments market.
The online accounting and payroll software provider stamped its brand on Kounta on Friday after taking an undisclosed minority stake in the local start-up in June.
Kounta can be used on any mobile device, essentially replacing a dedicated cash register.
MYOB general manager of connected services Andrew Birch said Kounta, which had 1000 cafe and restaurant customers, would give it more to offer small and medium-size retail business customers keen on the lower costs of such cloud based software.
They could have built it themselves, but he said there were numerous businesses that had done it well already.
“It is a big leapfrog into a cutting-edge cloud solution, [which] a lot of people are looking for,” he said.
Instead of having to buy separate accounting and payroll software and cash registers, and then plugging the sales into the accounting system, there would be one piece of software that could be rented online through any internet-connected device to tie these processes together.
Mr Birch said they considered an investment in rival Australian start-up Vend, but reckoned Kounta had a few better features.
INTEGRATION
They would now consider integrating its Pay Direct card reader, backed by Mint Wireless, which turns mobile devices into payment terminals.
“The next step is taking payments through your point of sale system,” he said. Kounta has an interface with the merchant payment provider Tyro so they can take payments from customers directly. “Expanding that in future is an option we will have a look at.”
“There’s a good opportunity there. When you go into a shop sometimes they print out a docket for what you have bought and then they staple the credit card docket to it. That’s just because they are running two different systems.”
“Because everything is moving into the cloud and it will be quite integrated, you won’t need to do that. Everything will be in the one system.”
Questions have been raised by shareholders about Mint Wireless as it has only two other customers so far – Bank of New Zealand and Electrolux. It has also only just been given approval to accept eftpos cards.
Mr Birch said they signed a five-year contract with Mint a year ago because they wanted to be first into the market with a mobile payment option that integrates with their accounting software.
In that time, a huge amount of competition had emerged for Mint from banks in Australia and global players such as PayPal and it is now rumoured Square will enter the Australian market when it is ready to accept chip cards.
However, he said the market was big enough for several competitors with about 60 per cent of SMEs still unable to take credit card payments.
He said Kounta would give them an edge and add to MYOB’s revenue because their product would integrate the payment terminal with the accounting and payroll software and the customer data systems.
“I think maybe we will get more sales because maybe existing clients that were thinking of buying an existing [point of sale] product will buy this one because the integration is there,” he said.