Bank of America Venture Trims 10% of Staff as Part of Digital Push
September 26 2017 - 02:45PM
Dow Jones News
By Rachel Louise Ensign
Bank of America Corp.'s merchant-services joint-venture has laid
off about 10% of its staffers as a part of a restructuring,
according to a person familiar with the matter.
Bank of America Merchant Services let go about 250 employees
last week, the person said. The business, operated in conjunction
with First Data Corp. since 2009, earlier this year employed about
2,200 people.
Last Wednesday, "we announced to employees a restructuring
designed to accelerate our business strategy and better meet
merchants' evolving expectations in this increasingly digital era,"
a firm spokesman said. The unit is trying to bolster the digital
services it provides to merchants either through its own technology
or partnerships.
The merchant-services company involves helping businesses handle
debit- and credit-card transactions. Firms in this line of business
often collect a fee for transaction processing and a commission on
equipment leases and sales. Industrywide, merchant processors
collected about $18.15 billion in debit- and credit-card fees from
merchants in 2016, according to the Nilson Report, a newsletter
tracking the payments industry.
In 2013, Bank of America Merchant Services was the top U.S.
merchant acquirer by Visa and Mastercard purchase volume, with $517
billion in such payments and 654,000 merchant outlets, according to
the Nilson Report. By last year, that purchase-volume metric had
grown to $546 billion, but it slipped to the second-largest
acquirer by Visa and Mastercard purchase volume after J.P. Morgan
Chase & Co.'s Chase Merchant Services, which had more than $800
billion in such payments.
Charles Martin, a Tampa, Fla.-based employee who was laid off,
said he and two local colleagues were told last Wednesday that
their jobs were eliminated and that day would be their final day of
work. "It took me by surprise," Mr. Martin said.
Write to Rachel Louise Ensign at rachel.ensign@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 26, 2017 14:30 ET (18:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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