New dawn for BPS Tech

BPS Technology will soon trade on the ASX under the name IncentiaPay as the Bartercard owner deepens its expansion into the digital payments arena.

On Thursday shareholders approved the change of the company name, as well as the issue of $8 million, comprised of cash and shares, to acquire digital agency Gruden.

The move completes new CEO Iain Dunstan’s overhaul of the company, which listed on the ASX in September, 2014 as BPS Technology.

Not only has the name changed, but there is a largely a new board after the departures of Brian Hall, Tony Wiese and founding CEO Trevor Dietz, which followed a stoush between management and activist hedge funds.

The corporate head office is moving to Sydney, although the Bartercard headquarters will remain in Southport.

Mr Dunstan said the new name was needed to reflected how the business is changing.

“We’ve launched a new brand to clearly represent our core business focus at present and into the future which has shifted to rewards, incentives and payments and away from purely a technology business,” he said.

“The rebrand reflects expansion into new digital payment areas through the impending acquisition of Gruden Group to complement our Entertainment, Frequent Values and Bartercard brands, representing 36,000 SMEs, 22,000 not-for-profits and 600,000 consumers combined.”

Gruden is a Sydney-based digital marketing and transaction company servicing more than half-a-million users across 800 retail outlets.

Gruden customers include fast-food chains Oporto, Red Rooster and coffee brand Starbucks, which use the company’s cloud-based mobile transaction platform mobileDEN.

Mr Dunstan said there will also be synergies between Gruden and Asian mobile-phone platform Alipay — which IncentiaPay partnered with last year.

“We’ve cemented partnerships with Alipay, the world’s largest payment app with 520 million users which will roll out across Gruden’s 800 mobileDEN terminals, Bartercard and Entertainment,” he said.

IncentiaPay is cashed up following completion of a twofor-three institutional offer to raise $12.4 million and a retail entitlement offer to raise $9.7 million. Retail shareholders took up $4 million of the offer. The $5.7 million worth of entitlements not taken up was allocated to underwriter Moelis and institutional investors.