Placecast has revealed that its ShopAlerts geofence location-based marketing platform now has 10m opted-in consumers across N. America and Europe. The company is also moving into the mobile payments space, and has hired Will Peppo as its chief financial officer. Peppo most recently served as CFO of TxVia, the mobile payments company acquired by Google in March 2012.

Over 130 brands, including The North Face, Starbucks, L’Oreal, Subway, Kiehl’s, Kmart, HP, Chico’s White House Black Market, JetBlue and SC Johnson have run ShopAlerts through Placecast and its partners. ShopAlerts is licensed by Telefonica’s O2 in Europe and DDR in the US. In the US, ShopAlerts programs are delivered across AT&T, Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile.

“Mobile marketing is increasingly converging with mobile payments,” says Placecast CEO, Alistair Goodman. “Will brings deep expertise in working with payments companies. He is an incredibly valuable addition to our team as we accelerate our efforts in mobile monetization.”

The Aite Group reports that 70 per cent of smartphone users worldwide have used their mobiles to make a payment during the past six months. It also forecasts that mobile payment transactions will total $9.3bn (£6bn) by 2012. Placecast says that it is poised at the intersection of mobile offers, payments, and location-based services.
Placecast says that plans to unveil its monetization solution for the mobile payments industry in the coming weeks.  

Placecast is also opening a London office and had hired Westley Gillard to head its UK division. Gillard comes to Placecast from leading Velti, where he served as head of business development.