National Data Corp., the payment processor, is combining two business lines into one that will put greater emphasis on electronic commerce.
Global Payment Systems, the merchant processing arm of the Atlanta-based company, is to merge by June 1 with Integrated Payment Systems, a division that sells payment processing services to merchants.
The new division will be called NDC eCommerce, the company said Wednesday.
David Hunt, president and chief executive officer of Global Payment Systems, will leave the company.
Thomas E. Dunn, who heads Integrated Payment Systems, has been named chief operating officer of NDC eCommerce, and will report to Robert A. Yellowlees, chairman and chief executive officer of NDC. Mr. Yellowlees will also be chief executive officer of the new business line.
"NDC, at its core, is an electronic commerce company," Mr. Yellowlees said. "This realignment will optimize resource deployment in executing our strategies to take advantage of new market opportunities."
Mr. Yellowlees said combining the divisions will help bring scale and efficiencies. These factors will accelerate the "speed to market" of new products and help the company attract new Internet partnerships, he said.
The move comes after mixed results in NDC's second fiscal quarter, which ended Nov. 30.
Global Payment Systems' revenue grew to $40.8 million, up 3% from the same period a year earlier, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Integrated Payment Systems' revenue rose to $46.1 million, up 16%. NDC's Health Information Services unit jumped to $112 million, up 55%.
Global Payment Systems, a joint venture between NDC and MasterCard International of Purchase, N.Y., was formed three years ago to give banks a bigger stake in the competitive world of so-called bank card acquiring, where companies vie for contracts to process and service the credit and debit card transactions of merchants.
NDC has a 92.5% stake in Global Payment Systems; MasterCard International owns 6.5%, and will retain its stake in the new division. Despite the changes, NDC will still use the Global name with its Global customers because of the "brand equity," according to an NDC spokeswoman.
Mr. Yellowlees said NDC has evolved from the days when it only supplied front-end support such as terminals and processing. Now it offers a full range of merchant services.
The services offered by Integrated Payment Systems are also ones that some banks provide, but Mr. Yellowlees does not anticipate any conflicts of interest.
"We don't see any change in the way we are working with banks," Mr. Yellowlees said. "It's to the banks' advantage for us to be as efficient as we can be."
"This will allow them to be more competitive and target their customers better," said Stan Anderson, president of Anderson and Associates, Arvada, Colo. "Any time that you have two units that have similar services and capabilities, you really can gain efficiencies by combining the two."
