Boatmen's Merchant Processing Unit Hires Chief Operating Officer

Jeffrey A. Rankin has been named senior vice president and chief operating officer of Boatmen's Merchant Processing Co., St. Louis.

Mr. Rankin, 40, joined Boatmen's Bancshares in 1993 as vice president and manager of merchant administration, responsible for shifting the agent banks in the bank's merchant processing program to a single processing platform.

Asked to comment about what effect the pending merger with NationsBank would have on his new position, he would say only that both banks had a similar commitment to the merchant processing business.

The two banks have formed alliances with First Data Corp. "We will see a combination of those two alliances into one."

In his new position, Mr. Rankin will be responsible for 30,000 merchant accounts that produce an annual charge volume of $3 billion.

"Boatmen's has made a commitment to merchant credit card processing," Mr. Rankin said. "I will continue to make sure we have products and services that are state of the art and price competitive, and make sure we'll be a leader in the market in the nine states where Boatmen's is located."

Mr. Rankin will report to James J. Ahearn, chairman and chief executive officer of Boatmen's credit card bank.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM AMERICAN BANKER