Town North Bank, a credit union-owned bank, has sold its card processing division to Fifth Third Card Processing.
"We made this purchase for growth and want to position ourselves for growth not cost cutting," Royal Cole, president of Fifth Third's financial institution division, stated. He also said that the purchase will not lead to layoffs of TNB employees. TNB Card Solutions will eventually be re-branded as Fifth Third Card Processing Solutions.
The sale of TNB Card Services closed on July 6 but was not announced until today. The price of the transaction was not disclosed.
Approximately 370 credit unions, many in Texas, currently processing transactions with TNB have become Fifth Third Processing Solutions customers, bringing the total number of credit unions Fifth Third claims as clients to roughly 770.
Fifth Third Processing Solutions was a division of Fifth Third Bank, but the bank sold a majority stake in the division to private equity investment firm Advent International in June of 2009.
The sale marks the Town North Bank's exit from the credit card business, except for the ownership of its own small card portfolio, which will be a Fifth Third client.
TNB was purchased by the credit unions in part to process card transactions in 1976.
