Ingo Money now has the ability to disburse funds to more than one billion bankcards. Ingo Money, a mobile payments technology provider, announced today that it has reached an agreement to acquire Fuze Network, a card disbursement platform.
Currently Ingo Money’s technology enables its partners and consumers to convert any check into guaranteed and irreversible Good Funds. The Ingo Network can be accessed directly by customers of most prepaid programs via the Ingo Money App or within their native mobile applications. Thousands of bank and retail locations nationwide also use Ingo Money’s Enterprise solutions in their branches, stores, ATMs and mobile applications.
Fuze enables its partners to add cash to more than one billion bankcards including credit, debit and prepaid cards. For example, a consumer cashing a check at a physical location can then disburse funds directly to the cards in their wallet.
“The combination of Ingo Money and Fuze technologies will accelerate our mission to digitize the cash economy by enabling consumers to use their mobile phones to convert any check or cash into electronic Good Funds and to push it virtually anywhere,” said Drew Edwards, founder and CEO, Ingo Money. “Not only will the combination enable us to expand our retail product offering to include cash transactions, but the integration into our mobile solutions will revolutionize the way self-banked consumers control their money; from anywhere to anywhere from the convenience of their phone.”
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston in a September 2014 research report, 37% of payments in the U.S. are conducted with paper instruments, which fuels a cash economy some estimate to be more than $2 trillion. The FDIC estimates that one-third of U.S. consumers are self-banked and conduct at least some of their financial transactions in the cash economy.
“Fuze can send funds to more than one billion bankcards, and we have thousands of retail locations integrated to our platform,” said Dave Wilkes, founder and CEO of Fuze Network. “Combining our technology with Ingo Money’s mobile payments technology will be a game changer and empower millions of consumers.”
The transaction is expected to close by year-end, subject to final due diligence and documentation.