Prepaid product provider epay New Zealand has applied to the Commerce Commission for clearance to acquire Ezi-Pay.

Both companies were involved in payment processing markets, the commission said, including processing payments for pre-pay mobiles, landline calling cards and gift cards.

Epay New Zealand was a division of Euronet Worldwide, according to its website.

Ezi-Pay was New Zealand owned and operated, according to its website and was founded in 2003.

This acquisition would include certain assets of communications provider Compass Communications and the assets or shares of EFTDATA Holdings, the Commerce Commission said, as both companies had the same shareholders as Ezi-Pay.

Compass Communications was fined $140,000 in November in relation to five charges of breaching the Fair Trading Act through its marketing of five prepaid phone cards between November 2008 and June 2009, NBR previously reported.

The commission’s role in considering the application for acquisition was to determine whether the acquisition would harm competition in the market “to the extent that there would be a substantial lessening of competition,” the Commerce Commission said.

A decision is due at the end of this month.