TransFirst LLC, a company specializing in services that bridge the gap between ISOs and processors, is purchasing an ISO that has been a longtime client.
The acquisition of Solveras Payment Solutions, one of several planned strategic initiatives, will provide the Hauppauge, N.Y.-based TransFirst with a “fourth arm,” says John Shlonsky, TransFirst president and CEO.
ISOs and independent agents constitute one of its arms, and TransFirst offers them a gateway, reporting, a proprietary mobile-payments application, proprietary e-signature and back-end processing such as transaction settlement and clearing, Shlonsky tells PaymentsSource.
Value-added resellers of software represent another arm, and TransFirst offers them a gateway and other services similar to those the company provides to ISOs. Many of TransFirst’s reseller clients market their services to health care organizations and government, Shlonsky notes.
For financial institutions, another arm, TransFirst offers processing and acquiring services that can include signing up the accounts and providing customer service.
With its latest acquistion, TransFirst obtains a fourth arm, which is the Solveras specialty of working with trade associations to locate merchants that are prospective clients.
Arlington, Va.-based Solveras has been working with TransFirst since 2004, and many Solveras merchants already have become familiar with the TransFirst platform, Brian Bates, Solveras CEO, said in an Aug. 24 TransFirst press release.
“The acquisition will put us in a position to continue longstanding partner relationships and provide even better products and services,” Bates said in the release.
Solveras staff will become TransFirst employees and will continue operations in Arlington and at the Solveras facility in Nashville, Tenn., the release said.
The acquisition is in keeping with TransFirst’s goal of using more of its own personnel to sign up more of the merchants it services, Shlonsky tells PaymentsSource.
In 2005, FirstTrust sales agents had signed up 40% of the company’s merchant base, while today the internal sales staff has signed up 80% of the merchants the company services, Shlonsky says.
TransFirst now has nearly 175,000 merchants, he adds.
Even after the Solveras acquisition, TransFirst expects additional expansion and change, he says.
“The purchase is one of several strategic initiatives that TransFirst will undertake in the coming months,” says Shlonsky.
