Cash Now Corporation (CHNW.PK) (Cash Now), a public company engaged in the design, manufacture, marketing and distribution of customized payday loan and check cashing software and white label or private label back end systems, Internet- based payday loans, and other sub prime financial utility tools, today announced that it executed an agreement in principle to acquire California- based company Global Visions Incorporated (Global) for cash and stock.
Global is a developer and worldwide wholesale marketer of a new generation of prepaid financial service products and "e-wallet"-type services.
Jack Chang, CEO of Global and the co-inventor of the ATM, said, "I see Cash Now as being a well-financed, upwardly mobile and forward-thinking company, with good management and a good advisory team, that has demonstrated revenue, and is in a strong position to expand its market share Internationally. International market expansion is where I can lend tremendous help since I have been working on the international front for the last several years." Moving forward, Jack Chang will maintain an equity position in the company, and will be actively involved in the business and marketing strategies and activities of the ATM side of the business.
Cash Now's CEO Garr Winters said, "we have been actively looking for an ATM and prepaid debit card expert to add to our management team for some time now. Our interest is in Mr. Jack Chang rather than the company in which he is a majority shareholder. Cash Now's advisors confirm that Cash Now will, soon after closing the transaction, spin out Global to an unrelated purchaser for an undisclosed sum to be paid in cash. We have been working out the details of this acquisition for several months now as we see a huge upside opportunity in the ATM sector." Mr. Winters added, "the ATM point of sale business was briefly operated by Cash Now several years ago in 2004 and 2005 by its previous management which I'm proud to have been part of. We literally witnessed our revenues skyrocket during that period, and we are looking to duplicate or repeat that process with the assistance and guidance of Mr. Chang."
Mr. Chang said there are currently more than 1.5 million ATMs worldwide, but the deployment of ATMs is still in the infancy stage in developing and less-developed countries. Internationally, prepaid products, such as the prepaid debit cards, are rapidly emerging. The next wave following the prepaid debit cards will be the need for payment system devices, such as the ATMs, to acquire the transactions of the prepaid debit cards. Therefore, the strategy is to focus the ATM deployment on the coattail of the International Prepaid Debit Card market, which is virtually untapped and enormous, since more than 5 billion of the 6.4 billion people in the world are "un-banked."