VeriFone to snap up Hypercom

VeriFone will acquire Hypercom, a developer of electronic payment and digital transactions solutions, for $485 million in shares, reports Globes.

VeriFone Israel president Lazy Yanay, says: "The acquisition could increase our workforce, because we'll have to expand our offices to accommodate command and control, marketing money, etc."

In 2006, VeriFone acquired Israel-based Lipman Electronics Engineering at a company value of $793 million.

The Russian government has approved a draft e-payment bill to regulate electronic payments, states BSR Russia.

The bill was first introduced in April this year by the finance ministry, but ran into trouble after it was rejected by the central bank and e-payment association leaders.

Viktor Dostov, chairman of the Russian E-Money Association says: “We consider this bill a reasonable compromise between strict regulation and the market reality”. He adds the total amount of transactions has hit $1.3 billion in 2009.

Google is taking another stab at designing a mobile phone with a built-in payment system that could eventually enable the devices to replace credit cards, says TMCnet.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt confirmed that Google has been working on a sophisticated new computer chip and an upgrade of its Android mobile operating system that will include a payment processing tool.

Schmidt says Google intends to forge partnerships with payment processors rather than try to expand into that line of commerce.