Travelex take control of Pulse Pos
Travelex yesterday said it agreed to buy the dynamic currency conversion business of Pulse International. Travelex has been the primary reseller of this segment of the Pulse payment solutions in Australia for the last three years.Dynamic currency conversion refers to the appealing, but apparently rare, service of letting travellers know the cost of something in their own currency. Travelex may be one of the few suppliers of this service, which applies an immediate (and fixed) exchange rate to a transaction at the point of sale.The point of sale business of Pulse is the only real growth segment of the company according to the 2006 financials of the firm. POS revenues increased to $5 million in 2006 from $650,000 in 2005. It isn't clear what proportion of these revenues are due to the DCC business and which are due to conventional Eftpos services.Key clients of the Travelex and Pulse DCC service are Accor hotels, some Westin hotels, plenty of airport retail outlets and assorted tourism businesses. BankWest, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ in New Zealand all market the service to their own merchant base.