Photo / Bevan Conley
The company behind failed payments platform Swipe HQ is suing BNZ and SmartPay, accusing the pair of deceit and conspiring against it.
Under a deal signed in 2012, Swipe HQ provided bundled mobile payment services to retailers using BNZ's banking infrastructure. To do this, Swipe HQ leased hardware from eftpos terminal provider SmartPay from 2014.
At that time BNZ was also working on a similar product, PayClip, which was more expensive and exclusive to its own banking customers.
Swipe HQ had accumulated more than 2,000 customers but late in 2015 retailers began to complain of problems with the product.
By early December 2015 two companies associated with Swipe HQ were moved into liquidation.
Although millions of dollars are owing in the liquidation – including more than $600,000 to SmartPay as a secured creditor, Swipe HQ's parent company, Optimizer HQ, still exists and has taken a lawsuit, claiming BNZ and SmartPay set out to ruin it.
Both are defending the case but didn't want to comment extensively as it hasn't been heard. BNZ said the allegations had no basis while SmartPay said the claim was "entirely misconceived."
Optimizer HQ director Manas Kumar filed the case in 2019 after finding out the year before that SmartPay had told BNZ it was trying to liquidate the Swipe HQ companies and suggested it "work on a solution" once it had been liquidated.
Kumar discovered this through a BNZ employee's complaint about the behaviour to the Commerce Commission.
In documents related to the complaint, released under the Official Information Act, BNZ admitted giving SmartPay information about Swipe HQ's customers.
Optimizer HQ is arguing this was a breach of confidence.
SmartPay's statement of defence said it received 340 customer contact details and merchant names of 1550 customers of Swipe HQ, claiming BNZ gave it the contact details so that it could tell those customers that it was going to turn off services, even though that wasn't physically possible.
It said it needed the customer names to track down its terminals, as Swipe HQ had not provided proper details.
The complaint made by then staff member Melissa Bowen was considered by the regulator in 2018 but it did not find enough information to support the employee's allegations of anti-competitive behaviour.
The Commerce Commission has released some but not all documents it holds relating to the complaint because some are subject to court suppression orders.
According to a letter from SmartPay chief executive Bradley Gerdis, throughout 2015 Optimizer was struggling to pay the lease for payment terminals, so SmartPay issued three statutory demands for payments.
SmartPay said it raised the issue with BNZ so the bank could avoid bad publicity if retailers thought the problem was the bank. The eftpos company then proposed taking on ex-Swipe customers by working on a solution using SmartPay's machines and BNZ's Payclip.
BNZ also stressed to the commission that, even though it was alleged there was a discussion between SmartPay and BNZ that the bank would pay Smartpay $10 for every SwipeHQ customer that moved to the bank, it did not agree to it.
The bank stressed its PayClip software was not compatible with SmartPay's terminals anyway.
In its statement of claim, Optimizer HQ alleges BNZ stalled development of the Swipe HQ product to the detriment of Swipe HQ.
The amount in damages Optimizer HQ seeks has not been specified at this early stage.
However, it pointed out it had had big plans for the product, having in 2014 signed a deal with Spark in which the telco was to promote the product to its business customers.
Swipe HQ had expected to gain 54,000 customers over several years under the deal.
While a strikeout application was scheduled to be heard in April, that was called off due to court closures and there is no new date for the case.
Kumar, who declined to comment for this article, had touted Optimizer HQ as a potential NZX aspirant in 2013 when the company raised $4 million. Kumar also boasted about having listed the company on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. However, the listing was on an unofficial sub-market and it later withdrew.
The company's share register records the company as having 55 shareholders, with Kumar owning a 55 percent stake. Millionaire hotelier Prakash Pandey is also an investor, with others listing their addresses as far-flung as Washington and California in the United States.
Somewhat confusingly, one of the two subsidiaries of Optimizer HQ in liquidation, ODev, was called Optimizer HQ up until 2013.