Payfone, a mobile payment processing service backed by American Express and Verizon, announced the appointment of veteran growth-stage company executive Matthew Tucker to the position of Chief Operating Officer. Tucker will drive the company’s global expansion and mobile payments adoption worldwide.
Tucker was most recently the President of Recyclebank, the Wall Street Journal’s 2011 number four-ranked “Next Big Thing” venture-backed company. Tucker brings to Payfone significant background in leveraging global relationships to successfully build and scale growth stage companies. Prior to Recyclebank, Tucker was CEO of Rely Software, and the first head of sales and marketing at Web-based banking pioneer LendingTree.
“Matt is an ideal addition to the Payfone team, bringing onboard an impressive track record and a wealth of experience that will support us in aggressively scaling our business operations globally,” said Rodger Desai, Payfone’s co-founder and CEO.
“As a leader in driving mobile payments adoption through its innovative service, Payfone offers a win-win-win proposition for merchants, operators and financial institutions,” added Tucker. “I look forward to working with the team to create new opportunities for our partners and to grow Payfone’s global presence. We won’t settle for anything less than building a world class organization that its partners can rely on for operational excellence, global reach and insight.”
Payfone recently announced $19M investment from American Express, Verizon Investments and Rogers Ventures to close one of the largest funding rounds in the mobile payments market-to-date. In addition, Payfone recently announced alliance with Serve, American Express’ new digital payments platform, to accelerate growth in mobile payments and international expansion, as well as a partnership with Verizon Wireless to power a new mobile payments service that will allow Verizon Wireless customers to make mobile payments for online purchases from smartphones, tablets and PCs.
Source: PR Newswire