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USA Technologies and The Pepi Companies Celebrate 100% Cashless Achievement
[December 05, 2012]

USA Technologies and The Pepi Companies Celebrate 100% Cashless Achievement


MALVERN, Pa. & DOTHAN Ala. --(Business Wire)--

USA Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: USAT) ("USAT") and The Pepi Companies ("Pepi") are pleased to announce the successful completion of Pepi's transition to 100 percent cashless. Pepi, a food, vending and coffee solutions business serving the states of Alabama, Georgia and Florida, is believed to be the first full-service food and beverage vending company that offers cashless on all its vending equipment. Pepi utilizes USAT's market- leading ePort® cashless payment technology and comprehensive ePort Connect® service for its vending machine base.

Two years ago, Vic Pemberton, President and founder of The Pepi Companies, and USAT began working on a plan to roll out a cashless solution to Pepi's vending machine base over the course of a five-year period. According to Pemberton, in light of outstanding customer response to the machines already offering cashless, and Pemberton's observations that his customers rarely carried cash, he made the decision in early 2012 to accelerate that timetable, with a goal of reaching 100 percent cashless for the remainder of his machine base by the end of 2012.

"At Pepi, we don't believe cashless is an option in our business any longer-it's a necessity," said Pemberton. "From a consumer perspective, the younger generation just doesn't carry cash anymore and we need to overcome that. The idea of any potential customer walking by our machines and not being able to buy something is just bad business.

"In addition, technoloy's impact on our industry is moving at a fast pace," added Pemberton. "Cashless can help offset volume declines associated with price increases, customers can multi-vend and USAT's Two-Tier Pricing Program provides additional flexibility from a cost perspective. And, as I look toward the future, there have never been so many opportunities brewing to strengthen customer relationships and create new revenue sources. Moving to 100 percent cashless adoption was just our first step.



"Our customers are increasingly asking for mobile payment capabilities, prepaid, couponing and loyalty rewards programs," continued Pemberton. "We believe that USAT, as our service partner, is best positioned to offer all these through its ePort Connect service in a turnkey, easy-to-implement and scalable way. We believe 100 percent cashless gives us the necessary infrastructure to capture the incremental upside now, while we pave the way for new opportunities in the future," concluded Pemberton.

Stephen P. Herbert, Chairman and CEO of USA Technologies (News - Alert), said, "We are very proud to work with The Pepi Companies on this important milestone in the food and beverage vending industry. We believe that their innovation and leadership is enabling Pepi to harness the benefits of connected machines, including cashless payments and telemetry data, across their entire business, setting an example for the many traditionally cash-based businesses looking to reinvigorate their business models for today's consumers. We look forward to working with Pepi on many of the expanded services USAT has underway."


For more information about USAT's cashless and M2M telemetry services, contact USAT sales at 1-800-633-0340.

About The Pepi Companies:

The Pepi Companies, headquartered in Dothan, Alabama, with branches in Bainbridge, Georgia, and Tallahassee, Florida, has been a leader in vending and food services for nearly 27 years, and coffee and water services for over 20 and 13 years, respectively. The company is a local Canteen franchise employing 100 loyal and dedicated professionals who deliver break room solutions, dining centers and catering and coffee and water services to over 1,000 clients. To learn more, please visit www.pepifoods.com.

About USA Technologies:

USA Technologies is a leader of wireless, cashless payment and M2M telemetry solutions for small-ticket, self-serve retailing industries. ePort Connect® is the company's flagship service platform, a PCI (News - Alert)-compliant, end-to-end suite of cashless payment and telemetry services specially tailored to fit the needs of the small ticket, self-service retail industries. USA Technologies also provides a broad line of cashless acceptance technologies including its NFC-ready ePort® G8, ePort Mobile™ for customers on the go, and QuickConnect™, an API Web service for developers. USA Technologies has been granted 84 patents; and has agreements with Verizon (News - Alert), Visa, Elavon and major customers such as Compass, Crane, AMI Entertainment and others. Visit the website at www.usatech.com.

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