How Verifone Helped Park The Super Bowl

While the Denver Broncos were on their way to becoming Super Bowl champions on the field on Sunday (Feb. 7), ParkHub and Verifone experienced a big win of their own at Levi’s Stadium, as ParkHub’s PRIME mobile point-of-sale platform — powered by Verifone’s technology — parked vehicles at a record pace of one every two seconds.

PYMNTS caught up with Joe Mach, Vice President, Vertical Solutions at Verifone, who shared his perspective on the ParkHub relationship and what’s next for Verifone following this big win.

“One thing that we really focus on at Verifone is forming great partnerships,” says Mach. “ParkHub is an example of how cashless, secure payments is getting into more and more niches.”

He explains that ParkHub had a relationship with another provider previous to Verifone, but there were issues. What drew the company to Verifone, says Mach, was that his company “had a payments solution that was based on security and was based on the fact that we could support all forms of payment. When you look at mPOS devices, outside of Verifone, a lot of them didn’t support EMV or couldn’t support the mobile wallets or didn’t have the security necessary.”

“We saw their software as a great niche to go into,” he continues, “and they looked at our technology and our leadership around security and openness in accepting all payment forms as a good way for them to go.”

In his own conversation with PYMNTS, ParkHub CMO Jarrod Fresquez remarked on the flexibility of Verifone’s e315 mPOS device as being a key factor behind ParkHub’s decision to partner with the company. Mach expanded on that notion, saying that “[ParkHub] needed something that was, for one, easy for the parking lot attendees to use but also something that would be able to integrate with not only ParkHub software but the other backend software that ParkHub’s solution supports.”

Of Verifone’s high-end 2D imager integrated into its payments lead that wraps around the mPOS device, Mach comments that “what’s great about it is — whether you’re trying to scan a QR code on a parking voucher, PDF417 or 1D image — we can read all of those. It’s a very high-end imager that works for a variety of uses.”

Even in the case (though this did not happen at Levi’s Stadium on Sunday) when a high rate of mobile usage decreases signal strength at a large-scale event. Should such an instance occur, Mach says the Verifone platform “can absolutely handle that.”

Because Verifone’s payments lead is a PCI-PTS-secured device, it can store encrypted transactions inside of the secure element, making it viable both online and off.

Coming off Verifone’s success with ParkHub at the Super Bowl, Mach shares that his company would “love to continue to expand our relationship with it to support a couple of things.”

In addition to continuing to deal with cashless tenders and expanding into contact and contactless EMV with ParkHub, Mach is keen to work with ParkHub related to Verifone’s present efforts to support mobile wallets “above and beyond payments.”

He points to work that his company is doing related to Apple Pay and loyalty, as well as with Google Wallet, indicating that Verifone “[has] that support inside of our devices.” From that starting point, says Mach, his company is “going to partner with ParkHub to figure out how to expand the innovation that we can bring to the table into the solutions that they’re delivering to the market.”

“We want to continue to evolve what they have,” he adds, “ultimately, to drive more value for the consumer.”

While continuing its relationship with ParkHub, Verifone is also working with a number of organizations that drive parking solutions.

“Maybe they’re not mobile,” says Mach of those companies, “but you think about security and EMV and unattended payments for parking, we’re actively working on a number of projects there.”

Furthermore, adds Mach, Verifone has “other partners that are bringing payments inside of sporting venues as well” — not specifically related to parking but with a focus on that same area.

It’s all part of what Mach explains is Verifone’s goal to help its partners to enable merchants to enhance the consumer experience “outside of strictly payments.”

“The payment is the foundation to what it is that we’re doing; however, being able to make that payment acceptance happen quickly and securely so they can get people parked as quickly as possible,” concludes Mach. That’s what he sees as “the big takeaway” from the Super Bowl victory that occurred off the field.