Merchant services provider SmartPay has bought the payments division of eftpos company ProvencoCadmus after it fell into receivership earlier this month.

The purchase includes all of ProvencoCadmus’ New Zealand and Australian payments operations, transactional business and all intellectual property relating to payments.

Unsustainable debt, lack of investment capital and a weaker than expected trading performance in its retail automation business saw ProvencoCadmus go into receivership on August 4.

Spot the difference: Contact Energy is offering 8% a year on $300 million worth of retail bonds while Fonterra is paying 7.75% on $800 million.

Fonterra's bonds come with an A+ credit rating from Standard & Poor’s, while Contact's carry a BBB rating.