Bank of America Plans Bankcard Processor Buyout
by July 19, 2004 12:00 am 62 views
Financial conglomerate Bank of America Corp. on July 13 announced it plans to buy bankcard clearer National Processing Inc. for $1.4 billion in cash. The deal by the Charlotte, N.C., chain, which operates 10 Northwest Arkansas offices including a significant BOA Wealth Management division in Rogers, will create the nation’s second-largest bankcard processing firm with nearly $250 million in annual volume.
Analysts say the transaction could be a significant one for retailers such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville, where customers do a lot of business through bankcards.
Bank of America, paying $26.60 per share for the publicly held Louisville, Ky., firm, will merge the acquired property into its Bank of America Merchant Services division.
National Processing clears Visa and MasterCard transactions for some 700,000 merchants in North America. It also provides financial settlement and reporting services to large and mid-size corporate customers in the travel and health care industries.
Bank of America holds nearly $1 trillion in assets and has 35 million consumer and small business customers. National Processing was 83 percent owned by National City Corp. of Cleveland, Ohio.