Headlines:
TD to Give TSYS 55% of Canada Market Ameritrade Says Profits Rose 70% in 3Q Fundtech Buying Trading Software Firm TNS to E-Mail Consumers About ATM Use
TD to Give TSYS 55% of Canada Market
Toronto-Dominion BankTotal System Services Inc. of Columbus, Ga., in a deal that would give the processor more than half the Canadian bank-card market.
M. Troy Woods, TSYS' president and chief operating officer, said Tuesday that Toronto-Dominion expects to complete the conversion of its consumer and commercial credit card accounts by the third quarter of next year. TSYS announced the deal Monday.
Toronto-Dominion, a Visa issuer, currently processes its card transactions in-house.
Mr. Woods said that once the conversion is complete, TSYS would be responsible for processing 55% of the Visa and MasterCard transaction volume in Canada.
It already handles transactions for Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank of Canada, Canadian Tire, and the Sears Canada Inc. portfolio that JPMorgan Chase & Co. announced plans to acquire in August.
Mr. Woods said JPMorgan Chase had elected to leave the Sears portfolio's processing contract unchanged, rather than consolidate it with the banking company's main portfolio, which was converted to TSYS in July.
"We've had a lot of success in Canada," he said. One reason, he said, is "word of mouth - it's a very small banking community."
Mr. Woods would not estimate the size of the Toronto-Dominion card portfolio. Toronto-Dominion reported in July that it had $2.3 billion of credit card assets on July 31.
Edward Neumann, a managing director at the technology services consulting firm CC Pace Systems Inc. of Fairfax, Va., said the agreement could be a sign that Toronto-Dominion is interested in issuing Visa's Signature card, a high-end product that commands a higher interchange fee.
He said that TSYS had announced it would run the Toronto-Dominion portfolio on its TS2 processing system, which provides advanced capabilities.
"It's a sizeable contract," said Mr. Neumann, who heads CC Pace's banking practice. "It's an important indicator that TSYS' technology is cutting edge."
Ameritrade Says Profits Rose 70% in 3Q
The Omaha online brokerage Ameritrade Holding Corp. announced Tuesday that third-quarter profits rose 70% from a year earlier, to $97 million.
Earnings per share rose 9 cents, to 23 cents.
In June, Ameritrade announced plans to buy TD Waterhouse USA from Toronto-Dominion Bank. The deal is expected to close this quarter. Ameritrade did not say how much it would pay.
Fundtech Buying Trading Software Firm
The Jersey City payment software vendor Fundtech Ltd. has agreed to acquire Radius Partners, a Pembroke, Mass., trading software company.
Fundtech said the deal, announced last week, would facilitate its expansion into securities processing. Neither the price nor the expected closing date were announced.
The two companies worked together to develop TRADEplus, a real-time payment application for post-trade securities processing that was introduced in September. TRADEplus, combines trade execution, allocation, and settlement; it marked Fundtech's entry into the securities market.
In Fundtech's press release, Chris Walsh, Radius' chief executive, said combining Radius' strength in securities processing with Fundtech's payments expertise would "further our market penetration and industry recognition."
TNS to E-Mail Consumers About ATM Use
The Toronto processor TNS Smart Network Inc. is now offering to notify consumers by e-mail about automated teller machine transactions that it processes involving their accounts.
The service, announced Monday, requires them to sign up on TNS' Web site. It is meant to provide an early opportunity to spot unauthorized transactions.
Some banks already provide transaction alerts as extensions of their online banking services. Though some of them e-mail customers only when bill payments clear, others also notify them of ATM and other offline transactions.
Contributions from Steve Bills, Matt Ackermann, Will Wade and Daniel Wolfe
