A payments deal that isn’t about the consumer.
Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR has agreed to buy BankServ, an outsourced provider of money transfer and payment solutions to banks and other financial institutions.
The deal is expected to close later this week, with GTCR committing up to $300 million in equity. Around half of that will be the purchase price for Las Vegas-based BankServ, while the rest will be reserved for add-on acquisitions and other expansion needs.
“Most people looking at the payments area are focused on consumer, but corporate payments is an area of great growth, says Collin Roche, a principal with GTCR. “Banks are under real pressure to improve their corporate payment processes.”
Roche adds that GTCR will use BankServ and its management team as a platform around which to build, and that he already has identified around 10 possible acquisition targets.
BankServ was founded in 1996, and backed by venture capital firms like (now-defunct) Thomson Financial Ventures. It currently works with more than 500 banks in 52 countries, and last September acquired NetDeposit, a provider of check electronification and payments technology.
