TSYS officially takes over TransFirst

On Friday (April 1), TSYS announced the completion of its acquisition of commerce solutions provider TransFirst. The trading operations of the two companies will be combined under the TSYS brand, creating the third largest integrated payment services provider in the U.S. and the sixth largest acquirer in the U.S. by revenue.

“The acquisition of TransFirst gives us the technology, scale and distribution capabilities that give us a leadership position in merchant acquisition similar to the scale and strength we have in issuer processing and prepaid program management. Our position and strength in these three key payment areas further diversifies our business and makes TSYS unique from other competitors,” explained M. Troy Woods, chairman, president and CEO of TSYS, in a press release.

“We are excited to have John and his team on board and believe that growing and expanding services to the business community will provide long-term shareholder value.”

TSYS first announced the distressed acquisition in January, with plans to buy TransFirst from Vista Equity Partners for about $2.4 billion. According to the initial announcement, TransFirst has a customer base of more than 235,000 small and medium-sized businesses across the United States. The transaction gives TSYS influence in the omnichannel arena, and the combined entity will serve over 645,000 points of sale. Key areas of focus will include prepaid programs, issuer services and merchant services.

John Shlonsky, president and CEO of TransFirst, who will serve as senior executive vice president of TSYS in the future, told PYMNTS in February that he is helping merchants navigate the omnichannel world and EMV’s industry-wide impact — while constantly trying to thwart growing cybersecurity threats and data breaches – was one of the main factors behind the acquisition of TransFirst by TSYS.

“The challenge now is that the payments space is changing and when I think about a combined entity, I don’t just look at it as a combination of TransFirst and the TSYS merchant segment. The goal is to combine products, including everything TSYS has to offer in terms of issuance, international reach and new payment schemes and products, on the front-end and back-end,” Shlonsky explained.

Shlonsky emphasized that the acquisition is an extension of the long-term, 15-year partnership between TSYS and TransFirst, which aims to build “a reliable and safe way to bridge the gap between these two sets of products, but also enable the improvement of these two sets of products so that end users have a better experience in how they want to pay and accept payments.”