NetSpend CEO Dan Henry to Depart

Dan Henry is leaving his job as chief executive of NetSpend effective July 31, and will be succeeded by Chuck Harris, who is president of the prepaid card company, a unit of the processor Total System Services (TSYS).

Henry's exit will be the second departure of a top TSYS executive this month. Its CEO, Philip W. Tomlinson, will retire July 31. Tomlinson has been with the processor since 1974, about a decade before TSYS was spun off in 1983 by Columbus Bank and Trust Co. He became the company's president in 1992.

Harris has been named senior executive vice president of TSYS, and will retain his title of president of NetSpend, TSYS says in a July 14 press release. Henry is departing NetSpend, which became a TSYS unit last July, to be closer to his family in the Kansas City area.

"My decision to leave is a difficult one as the people at NetSpend are my heroes, and there are no finer people in payments than those who are at TSYS," Henry says in the release. "However, with my home and family based in Kansas City, it's time for me to pull back on my travel and spend more time at home. Chuck is the right person to take on this top leadership role and will surely grow NetSpend to new heights."

The Columbus, Ga.-based TSYS purchased the Austin, Texas-based NetSpend a year ago for $1.4 billion. The processor described the deal as "transformational," and at the time it emphasized that it was keeping its NetSpend's management in place.

"We've got the right people to manage and run it," Tomlinson said of Henry and Harris in February 2013, when the acquisition was announced. Though TSYS already had a considerable share of the prepaid card processing market, its purchase of NetSpend marked the first time the Columbus, Ga., company offered a product directly to consumers.

Harris joined NetSpend as president in July, 2010, and was initially responsible for the partner, direct and corporate paycard lines of business, as well as NetSpend's products, technology and operations. Harris joined NetSpend from Intuit, where he was general manager of the company’s payment solutions division.

“It will be a seamless transition for Chuck to lead the NetSpend team. Having served as president since 2010, Chuck knows the company and the business well," says M. Troy Woods, TSYS' president and chief operating officer, in the press release.  "Chuck is a 20-plus year veteran of the payments industry, and his depth of experience has elevated our ability to bring accessible and affordable financial services to the more than 68 million underbanked consumers in this country."

Woods is succeeding the outgoing Tomlinson as TSYS' CEO at the end of the month. Tomlinson will remain the executive chairman of the TSYS board until the company's 2015 annual shareholders' meeting.