Tyro sues Canadian competitor for attempting to steal its customers

afr.com:

Tyro Payments has launched a Supreme Court legal action against Kounta alleging the Canadian-owned company has been attempting to steal Tyro’s payment terminal clients in the hospitality sector.

Kounta – which provides “point of sale” software and has been offering payment services under Tyro’s financial services licence – was acquired in 2019 by Lightspeed Group, a Montreal-based company dual-listed in New York and Toronto. It earns annual revenue of around $900 million – more than twice as much as Tyro.

Kounta has breached “contractual non-solicitation obligations”, by attempting to sell Lightspeed’s payments offering to some Tyro customers, Tyro alleges. Louise Kennerly

Lightspeed – used by 12,000 businesses in Australia and NZ, according to its website, a smaller footprint than Tyro’s 53,000-strong merchant base – is competing with Tyro as well as the major Australian banks, and Block-owned Square. It has launched a new payments terminals offering alongside its POS software in a hotly contested market.

Tyro has been under pressure this year after a private equity deal fell apart in May, but last week the stock bounced on the back of record full-year earnings and stronger transaction volumes, with analysts upbeat about an improved margin and new products.

Tyro says Kounta has been operating as its “agent” under a contract between the two companies and as an “authorised representative” under Tyro’s Australian Financial Services Licence.

Tyro has alleged in proceedings filed in the NSW Supreme Court on Monday that Kounta has breached “contractual non-solicitation obligations”, by attempting to sell Lightspeed’s new terminals to some Tyro customers and charging its customers more for the POS software if they keep Tyro’s