This partner of PayPal is dodging the risk of taking sides in the massive mobile payments controversy.
As Vend – a partner with PayPal – opens its first Australian office in order to broaden its mobile payments reach, it is being careful to remain neutral in its position when it comes to NFC technology, which has generated strong degrees of love and hate throughout the industry.
In this case, the company has taken careful steps in an attempt to remain “payments agnostic”.
This, according to Vaughan Rowsell, the CEO of Vend, which is the producer of point of sale terminal cloud based software. This week, the company opened its first office in Australia, with a new location in Melbourne. It intends to add 10 new hires in 2013. There are also offices in San Francisco and in Auckland.
It is hoping to add more partners and is remaining NFC technology neutral in order to keep doors open.
The intention of Vend is to add more Australian partners, including third party developers, retailers, mobile payment companies, and others. Currently, it has retailer customers that exist in around 100 different countries around the world. Moreover, it has approximately 9000 installations. Among them, Australia already makes up about 30 percent of its worldwide customer base.
This helps to explain why the company chose to open up a new office in Melbourne, as it helps to settle the company more locally to a large number of its customers.
One of Vend’s significant business partners is PayPal, which has expressed considerable opposition to mobile payments based on NFC technology. David Marcus, the president of that company, has been highly critical of near field communication based services. For this reason, it has been highly strategic for Vend to take a more “agnostic” position in terms of its opinion on the tech.
In this light, Rowsell has stated that neither he nor the company is willing to say whether or not NFC technology will be a successful player in the future of mobile payments. Furthermore, he has no intention of declaring a front runner in that sphere. Instead, he has simply stated that there are still opportunities open for a wide range of options and it is too early to tell which way the wind will blow.
