Dive Brief:

• Global Payments is finding traction with its Genius point-of-sale solution among Worldpay’s larger restaurant customers as the companies have begun cross-selling their products, Global Payments Chief Executive Cameron Bready said Wednesday.
• Consumer spending remained “healthy” in the first quarter, although volumes were negatively affected by airline customers in the Middle East due to the Iran war and “slightly lower IRS payment volumes” attributed to the income tax law enacted last year, Bready told analysts during a quarterly earnings call. Impacts from the war will be “modest and transitory,” he said.
• Global Payments’ first quarter adjusted net revenue rose 5.5% to $2.86 billion, accounting for the Worldpay acquisition and excluding the issuer solutions business and others that Global Payments sold, according to the earnings report.

Dive Insight:

In January, Global Payments completed its $24 billion acquisition of Worldpay, a deal aimed at making the Atlanta-based company a pure-play payments processor handling about $3.7 trillion in annual payment volume for merchants in 175 countries. Worldpay’s financial technology enables payments, and includes a network of about 6,000 bank branches.

Global Payments will integrate Genius, which it debuted a year ago, into Worldpay’s financial institution partner channel as “a key priority” to drive higher revenues, Bready said Wednesday. Global Payments touts the POS system as a flexible solution adaptable to the needs of varied merchants, from restaurants to sports stadiums to contractors and small service businesses.

Later this year, Global Payments will release Genius Mobile in the U.S., which Chief Operating Officer Bob Cortopassi described as “a version that is slightly slimmer in terms of both its device footprint and its feature functionality that’s designed to be easier to use and more general purpose.”

The company also has a version of Genius suited for service businesses that need scheduling and invoice capabilities, Cortopassi said Wednesday.

Global Payments has launched Genius in Austria and Germany, with additional countries planned later this year and next, the CEO said without identifying any. The POS system’s international expansion will begin contributing financially next year, he said. 

Worldpay’s U.S. salesforce “began selling Genius almost immediately following the close” of the sale, Bready said, to address what he called “a longstanding product gap” in that company’s portfolio.

“We are seeing strong, early interest in Genius from Worldpay’s enterprise restaurant clients, relationships that are opening meaningful cross-sell opportunities we simply could not have accessed previously,” Bready said.

He highlighted the Subway sandwich chain – a Worldpay customer – as an early win for the Genius point-of-sale solution. Subway will use Genius’ kitchen management software system in about 2,500 of its locations, Bready said. 

“We think there’s more of that forthcoming in the market as we continue to bring the businesses together and unlock opportunities as a combined company,” he said.

Global Payments will introduce several new features at the National Restaurant Association Show later this month in Chicago related to “how we can better leverage AI to enhance” the POS product’s capabilities, Bready said.

Beyond Genius, other new customers Global Payments landed during the quarter included Abercrombie & Fitch, the apparel retailer, and Bojangles, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based quick-service restaurant chain with stores in 17 states.

Global Payments hired about 300 new sales employees during the quarter and began direct sales in Mexico, according to an investor presentation released Wednesday.

The number of new locations with Genius rose 25% from the prior quarter, with a 20% increase in customers attaching payment services with the product, Global Payments CFO Josh Whipple said. Genius is also improving financial yields from new customers willing to pay for “differentiated capabilities” within the platform, Bready said.

“Historically, if I'm being honest, we made it a little bit hard for our dealers to sell payments,” the CEO said. “We’re trying to ease the process by which our dealers are able to attach payments to Genius when they’re selling the solution into (the) market.”