Mergers & Acquisitions

March, 2018

• 30 March

  Private-Equity Firm Advent International Merges Clearent With an ISV

  

  Advent International, a private-equity firm with considerable experience in the payments space, announced Friday that it had acquired a majority stake in the big independent sales organization and payment processor Clearent LLC and merged it with FieldEdge, an independent software vendor serving home-services contractors. Advent had also bought FieldEdge. Financial …
• 22 March

  Eye on E-Commerce Fraud: CyberSource And Worldpay Harness Machine Learning And Big Data

  

  Machine learning and huge swaths of data are being enlisted in the battle to counter online fraud, with CyberSource announcing an enhancement to its fraud-prevention service and processor Worldpay Inc. launching a new fraud-prevention service Wednesday at MRC 2018, the annual conference held by the Merchant Risk Council. CyberSource, a …
• 13 March

  With Integrated Processing on the Rise, Gateways Have Become a ‘Hot M&A Target’

  

  Independent sales organizations and acquirers looking for a payment gateway have another resource to use. Payments consultancy The Strawhecker Group recently released its Payment Gateway Directory, which catalogs 58 data points about 73 companies. The report also analyzed the performance of the gateways by assessing the account-boarding process, evaluating developer …
• 8 March

  E-Commerce Specialist Stripe Snaps up Faster EMV Developer Index in Multichannel Play

  

  The search by online-payments kingpins for avenues into physical-world stores reached a new milestone with the acquisition by Stripe Inc. of point-of-sale technologist Index Inc. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, according to an Index spokesperson, who added the company has no immediate comment on the transaction. A Stripe …
• 5 March

  Network Merchants Closes Creditcall Acquisition and other Digital Transactions News briefs from 3/5/18

  

  Network Merchants LLC, a technology provider for independent sales organizations, acquirers, and independent software vendors, closed its previously announced acquisition of gateway and EMV technology provider Creditcall for an undisclosed price. Digital cross-border person-to-person remittances will total $300 billion by 2021, up from an estimated $225 billion this year, according …
• 2 March

  Financial-Industry Standards Body IFX To Combine Operations With NACHA

  

  Automated clearing house governing body NACHA and the Interactive Financial eXchange Forum Inc. (IFX) this week announced they intend to combine their operations. Founded in 1997, the Wakefield, Mass.-based IFX Forum is an international non-profit that developed and promotes the IFX business message specification as an open, interoperable for standard …

February, 2018

• 28 February

  Integration Tasks Emerge Now that the Vantiv-Worldpay Merger Is Official

  

  The merger of payment processors Vantiv Inc. and London-based Worldpay Group plc was completed Jan. 16, and up next for leaders of the combined company is integration of operational platforms, selling products to a wider customer base, and achieving their goal of $200 million in cost savings in three years. …
• 27 February

  Blackhawk’s Proposed $3.5 Billion Buyout Headed Toward Mid-Year Close

  

  No other bidders emerged during a so-called go-shop period that expired earlier this month, so Blackhawk Network Holdings Inc. reported Tuesday that its planned $3.5 billion buyout by two investment firms remains on track to close at mid-year. The Pleasanton, Calif.-based provider of gift cards and other prepaid card services …
• 12 February

  First Data’s Prepaid Business Shines as Struggling Bank Joint Ventures Begin Turnaround

  

  First Data Corp.’s struggling merchant-acquiring joint ventures with three big banks are showing nascent signs of a turnaround, and business is booming in the company’s prepaid card unit, top executives reported Monday. The Atlanta-based processor reported last year that new merchant referrals from its big joint ventures with The PNC …
• 8 February

  Cantaloupe Acquisition Adds 270,000 Connections to USA Technologies’ Network

  Fresh from its $85 million acquisition of Cantaloupe Systems Inc., USA Technologies Inc. reported Thursday that it added 311,000 net new connections to its network of vending machines and other unattended card-accepting merchant locations in the quarter ended Dec. 31. Approximately 270,000 of the new connections came from Cantaloupe, a …