TSYS has been interested in TransFirst for the past two years, Jared Drieling, business intelligence manager at payments consultancy The Strawhecker Group, tells Digital Transactions News. “It definitely makes sense for a couple of reasons,” Drieling says. “Clearly, TransFirst is a little more focused on small and mid-size businesses, where TSYS has a little more focus on larger retailers. As we’ve seen with other merchant acquirers, the more profitable segments are in the small and mid-size sector.”
The other factor is that the TransFirst acquisition is an opportunity for TSYS to broaden its products and services, Drieling says. “TSYS has been somewhat conservative on the technology front, especially along the omnichannel front,” he says. Other processors have already begun to tackle how to offer payments services when the lines between physical and digital payments are blurring, he says. “TransFirst really brings together other areas, such as integrated payments and omnichannel services.”
Like the recently announced Global Payments Inc. deal to buy Heartland Payments Inc., the TSYS-TransFirst deal is about building on top of what each company already has developed, Drieling says.
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