The private-equity company Navigation Capital Partners has acquired West Suburban Bancorp Inc.'s Prepaid Solutions USA unit in a move into the rapidly growing prepaid payments market.
The deal closed last week, and Navigation, of Atlanta, has renamed the unit Prepaid Solutions Inc. The companies did not disclose the price.
"The play here, as far as we're concerned, is the fact that the payments game is a pretty lucrative, go-forward industry that we want to be a part of," said O.G. Green, a Navigation operating partner.
Ken Goins, who was named Prepaid Solutions' chief executive, said the company will retain all its customer relationships. Dan Grotto, who had been the unit's CEO, is now its president.
Prepaid Solutions has recently begun offering payroll debit cards to the cruise line industry, which could help it "leverage an existing opportunity and possibly get into other areas that have to do with foreign currency" travel cards, Goins said.
Green also wants the company to target the underbanked market, particularly the Hispanic population. "We'll focus on that and see how we can carve a niche in that area, because we feel it is undeveloped," he said.
