Bartercard terminals for Cadmus

By PETER GRIFFIN

Payment technology company Cadmus Technology has sealed a deal across the Tasman that could be worth around $2 million in its first year.

The company has picked up the terminal and transaction processing business for Bartercard Australia, which has 17,000 merchants throughout the country.

Cadmus will supply the merchants with terminals through which Bartercard members can make payments.

It will also host the back end transaction processing, probably from an office to be opened in Brisbane.

Already used in New Zealand by many of Bartercard's 4500 local merchants, the terminals will have some more advanced features allowing merchants to send advertising messages across the system.

Merchants with e-commerce-enabled websites would also be able to have emails sent to the terminals advising them of orders that have been placed online.

Cadmus managing director Ian Bailey said the company was aiming to generate revenue from the contract of $2 million in the first year but that it may go as high as $7 million depending on how many merchants took the terminals.

A Cadmus sales team would be responsible for selling the terminals across the country.

Most of the technology development would continue to be carried out in New Zealand.

Bailey said Cadmus was close to signing another "substantial agreement" in Asia.

Last year Cadmus said that of around one million terminals sold in the Asia Pacific region every year, it would be happy to capture 70,000.

A payment service called POS Power and developed in conjunction with Trustpower had finally got under way.

Terminals were installed in users' homes in Nelson and Ashburton.

The terminals allow users to pay bills from their homes.

Cadmus last week reported an operating loss of $894,000 for the half-year ended December 31, 2001.

That came on revenue for the company of around $3.5 million.

Its positive operating cashflow was $164,000.