Payfone Adds to Executive Team with Payments Industry Veterans

Payfone Appoints Executives to its Management Team to Fuel Growth in the Remote Payments Space

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Mar 02, 2012, 10:45 ET

NEW YORK, March 2, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Payfone, a leading remote payment processing service backed by American Express, Verizon, Roger Communications and several leading venture capital firms, announced the appointment of four payment industry executives to its management team to fuel on-going growth and expertise in remote payments.

"We are thrilled to add this group to the Payfone team. Payfone is viewed by our partners and customers as the most innovative company in remote payments and this group of executives will help us continue to provide innovative products and services to drive revenue growth for merchants and mobile operators," said Rodger Desai, Payfone's Chief Executive Officer.

The new executives include:

Prakash Hariramani is Vice President, Head of Product. Hariramani has over 16 years of experience in the mobile space, including nearly a decade in mobile payments. Prior to joining Payfone, Hariramani was a Senior Business Leader and Head of Emerging Consumer Products at Visa. In this role, he established product strategy and drove execution for the Visa digital wallet.

William Murray is Vice President of Financial Institution Sales. Murray comes to Payfone with 16 years of credit card experience at MasterCard Worldwide, where he was most recently responsible for initiating MasterCard's merchant-focused eCommerce strategy. Murray secured partnerships for MasterCard with giants including Amazon.com, Overstock.com, 1800Flowers.com, Dell.com, Microsoft, and Best Buy. Previously, Bill was Vice President of MasterCard Global Key Accounts, managing Affinity & Cobrand business development and marketing partnerships with MBNA, Bank of America, and Barclaycard's UK portfolios.

Scott Shepherd is Vice President of Mobile Operator Management. Previously, Shepard led Verizon Wireless product strategy and management for mobile commerce including mobile operator billing and mobile banking.

Amy Masters is Director of Marketing. Masters is responsible for the company's marketing strategies, channel marketing, market research, public relations, and communications. Prior to Payfone, Masters was a Vice President of Marketing at American Express, where she led a national marketing team that supported a variety of different industry verticals such as retail, B2B, and travel.

About Payfone:
Payfone is revolutionizing mCommerce by leveraging the mobile number to create One Touch Checkout. Payfone's unique ability to leverage the mobile operator network to directly authorize and process payments, drives higher sales conversion and revenue yield for merchants and mobile operators, while managing fraud and revenue leakage. Additional information is available at http ://www .payfone .com.

Payfone is backed by American Express, Blackberry Partners Fund, Opus Ventures, Rogers Communications, RRE Ventures, and Verizon Communications. Payfone is based in New York City with engineering and development offices in San Jose, CA.

SOURCE Payfone