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Peter Kight, who founded CheckFree in the 1980s, has a vision for the future, but it's up to the banks if they want to be there.
June 6
Huntington Bancshares (HBAN) in Columbus, Ohio, announced Thursday that electronics payment pioneer Peter J. Kight has joined its board of directors.
Kight is the founder and former chairman and chief executive of CheckFree, a longtime industry leader in payments processing and electronic banking. He started the firm in 1981 and by the time it was sold to Fiserv (FISV) in 2007 for $4.4 billion, CheckFree was handling electronic transactions for 10,000 financial institutions and some 15 million consumers.
An icon in the industry, Kight was the first-ever recipient of Bank Technology News' lifetime achievement award. (Like American Banker, Bank Technology News is a SourceMedia company.)
"Pete is one of the most successful entrepreneurs and influential leaders in the electronic consumer payments industry," Stephen Steinour, Huntington's chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a news release. "Huntington will benefit enormously from his insights and advice as we continue
to explore ways to leverage technology to make banking more efficient and convenient for our customers."
Steinour also noted that Kight is Columbus native who "shares Huntington's vision for the Midwest to help our local communities grow and prosper."
Kight is currently the co-chairman and managing director of the Comvest Group, a private equity group in West Palm Beach, Fla. He recently headed a group that invested $12.2 million in Cartera, a merchant-funded rewards company.
