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Table of Contents:
Syniverse to Acquire BSG’S Wireless Clearing and Financial Settlement Business
Florida Consumer Groups Take Aim at Proposed Legislation
Sprint Nextel Releases New Bill Format
In next week’s issue - A Closer Look at the Ongoing Pretexting Debate
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Syniverse to Acquire BSG’S Wireless Clearing and Financial Settlement Business
Syniverse Technologies announced that it will acquire the wireless clearing and financial settlement business of Billing Services Group (BSG) for approximately $290 million in cash. “This deal made sense for Syniverse,” says Scott Donahue, principal with investment banking firm TripleTree. “They needed to scale and they need to be able to offer a more diverse product set,” he says. He adds that $290 million “was a reasonable price to pay” and that Syniverse can make this a profitable acquisition. “
The clearing and settlements business is one of margins derived from scale. Syniverse needed to make an acquisition in order to grow, according to Donahue, because “Syniverse’s organic revenue year over year has not been that strong and they needed to move into the European and Asian markets to be competitive.” Syniverse now will be able to leverage BSG’s service provider relationships in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. BSG serves approximately 180 mobile operators globally and was a major competitor to Syniverse in the European market. “This acquisition will make it much easier for the company in that market,” says Donahue. Over the last year or two, the clearing and financial settlements sector has seen tremendous consolidation. Sybase acquired Mobile 365; Mach recently purchased Cybernet; Neustar bought Followtap; and Syniverse absorbed Asian provider ITHL two years ago.
Read More...
Florida Consumer Groups Take Aim at Proposed Legislation
In the Florida State Assembly, legislators have 60 days to consider almost 2,400 bills. A coalition of consumer groups, concerned that the lawmakers wouldn’t have enough time to read through the fine print of all of the bills, reviewed the legislation in advance and highlighted two bills they believe are anti-consumer, one of which dealt with issue of line item billing and cell phone insurance.
The "Free Insurance" Bill - SB 1754 by Sen. Posey, and HB 1473 by Rep. Brown - would repeal the prohibition against free insurance in retail consumer product sales, such as mobile phone service contracts. Consumer groups said that the problem with this bill is that the insurance is not “free.”
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Sprint Nextel Releases New Bill Format
Sprint Nextel released a new bill format this week. The redesign is meant to drive customer satisfaction. A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll conducted in March 2005, for example, noted that 42 percent of respondents felt wireless bills were too confusing and that it was a problem. Sprint Nextel worked to create a clean bill design for easier readability that will also allow for customized marketing messages based on relevancy and geographic locations. To develop the new format, the company conducted its own customer survey to measure satisfaction and examined best practices of companies with high rates of customer satisfaction with billing.
Sprint Nextel’s consumer customers are being migrated in phases to the new bill format, and it is expected that all consumer customers will begin receiving the new bill by the end of 2007. The new bill will average three pages, as opposed to six or seven with the old version, and will no longer provide call detail records. Consumers that want call detail can view an online version. Customers can also receive their new bills via email or online and can set up automatic payments using a bank account or credit card.
Comments and feedback welcome, please email Jill Morgan at jmorgan@billingworld.com.
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