Travelex has agreed to acquire Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) company Pulse Pos Pty Ltd a subsidiary of Pulse International, a company with whom it has had an alliance with in Australia since 2004.

DCC technology instantly recognises foreign credit cards, allowing retail and online merchants to offer foreign cardholders the option of paying in the cardholder's home currency. It also allows financial institutions to DCC-enable their ATMs, providing cardholders with fixed withdrawal information in their home currency.

David Sear, Divisional Managing Director, Travelex Outsourcing said; "This strategic purchase enables Travelex to offer banks and ATM operators best of breed DCC technology tailored to their technical and service models. DCC fits well into Travelex' range of global payment products and we expect strong adoption globally."

Through partnering with Travelex, banks will have the capacity to offer their merchants - particularly those servicing international travellers - a DCC capability which provides foreign visitors with price certainty and confidence at point of sale.

"Combined with enabling banks to offer an added value service to their merchant customers, the technology would also provide both banks and merchants with a new revenue stream" Mr Sear said.

Pulse International, established in 2000, is the largest provider of DCC and multi-currency switching services in Australia. Mr Brian Sherman AM, Chairman of Pulse International said: "I am delighted with the Travelex transaction. Pulse first deployed DCC on EFTPOS in 2004 and Travelex and Pulse developed an alliance to provide multi-currency and DCC ATM, EFTPOS and web capabilities to Australian merchants in that year".

Pulse Pos Pty Ltd will be renamed Travelex Outsourcing Pty Ltd. Pulse International will continue with its transaction processing and switching business and will retain the whole of the ATM component of its business, providing transaction processing and related ated services in respect of approximately 2,000 ATMs in Australia. Pulse International's ATM business is not part of the transaction.