NCC Purchases Financial Alliance
Remember that back in issue 97:06:02 "Update on NCC Check" we told you how we were attempting to print a story about National City Check but to no avail? At that time, Tom Wimsett, Executive Vice President of NPC's Merchant Services Division said, "Although NCC would like to do a story on our check product in The Green Sheet, changes at NCC have been our prime focus recently."
Now some of those changes are public knowledge: National Processing, which is owned by NCC, has announced an agreement to purchase FA Holdings, Inc., which owns Financial Alliance Processing Services. FA Holdings markets credit and debit processing, and is one of the country's largest ISOs.
According to Bob Showalter, NPC President and CEO, both parties will benefit from the acquisition since each focus on a different market. "By buying Financial Alliance, we not only diversify our portfolio, but also bring to NPC a sales-oriented organization that understands our business and has proven it can rapidly grow revenues through both direct and indirect distribution channels."
Financial Alliance's 25 regional sales offices will sell NPC's card and check products and NPC will also have access to FA's 30 strategic ISO relationships.
Today, Wimsett says NPC and FA complement each other. "NPC's strength has been its commitment to service large and middle market merchants. By acquiring FA, our existing sales and service organization will remain focused on these customers, while FA's sales and service organization will stay focused on its strength-smaller merchants-most of which have only one or two locations.
