ISOs Continuing To Change Hands
We are continuing to see changes in ISO ownership and ISO growth through purchase strategy, mergers, and acquisitions.
One of the latest such announcements is that Deluxe Data (owners of SCAN, and the nation's largest check printer) is selling Financial Alliance, a Louisville, Kentucky based ISO (Independent Service Organization) it acquired about two years ago.
The sale is reportedly being made to a group of investors and existing management personnel.
Such changes have certainly become a regular event in the Financial Service Industry in the last couple of years, with organizations such as PMT Services taking bankcard portfolio acquisition to an entirely new height by acquiring six in one year.
While some may well say that this is the last remaining opportunity for significant growth in the world of merchant bankcard acceptance, mergers and acquisitions can be very tricky things.
When a merger or acquisition doesn't work out, financial factors-the buyer paid too much, or didn't cut costs enough-are often blamed.
However, finance is not the biggest cause of merger troubles or failures, according to a study by the American International College in Springfield, MA.
Clashing corporate cultures is the biggest success-killer, and is more likely and more damaging than financial mistakes. The troubled acquisition by staid Mellon Bank of the freewheeling Dreyfus Funds is a great example.
