A successful handoff: MoneyPass makes the transition to Fiserv

Early last fall, Fiserv announced that it would acquire the MoneyPass surcharge-free network, along with ATM managed services and debit card processing from Elan Financial Services, a unit of U.S. Bancorp, for $690 million.

A Sept. 25 press release about the deal said:

Fiserv will build on the growth of its card services business by expanding its suite of solutions in key areas such as ATM managed services. The company will also add MoneyPass, the second largest surcharge-free network in the United States with access to more than 33,000 ATMs nationwide, to further enhance its market position. Fiserv will offer Elan clients additional services, including risk management solutions, Accel debit payments network and enhanced debit platform capabilities.

Fiserv began to translate this vision into action immediately after the transaction was finalized on Oct. 31.

At the ATM Industry Association US conference last month in Orlando, ATM Marketplace got an update on the transition from Steve Gernes, the longtime head of the surcharge-free MoneyPass network at U.S. Bank, now charged with with MoneyPass sales and relationship management at Fiserv.

Q: Tell me what you're working on now. 

A: I'm still focused on MoneyPass. With the acquisition, we got MoneyPass, the ISO processing business and the FI debit and credit processing business. And then we also do ATM managed services for banks, so that was what came over. My team's focused on MoneyPassing and the ISO processing.

Q: How has that changed things for you?

A: I think the good thing about what's happened is that, with MoneyPass, it's almost like order-taking. There are so many Fiserv banks that now are being introduced to MoneyPass and the interest level is so high. We've got a lot of new customers that are going to be coming out with MoneyPass and we're excited about that. It's great to be that busy.

Q: So, you're seeing some crossover already?

A: Right. And so the first wave of it is Fiserv customers that may not have a surcharge-free strategy. Then the next phase of that will be taking the existing MoneyPass clients and saying what else can we do for you? Whether it's the Accel Network, whether it's other FI products and services. So, there's a lot of really cool opportunity to grow this. 

Q: I'm guessing, then, that you're interfacing quite a bit with your counterparts at Fiserv.

A: Yes. We've got the crossover and we're very closely aligned with the network folks. And now we have Accel and MoneyPass.

And now we have Accel and MoneyPass. So, it's a nice thing from a network standpoint to be able to offer options and create synergies for our clients, and it's good to go out and talk about both things because, you know, you might not want to give all your ATM surcharging away — especially in this environment. So Accel is a good option there. But if you want to, you can do MoneyPass. 

Q: Can you give me a brief overview of Accel for anyone who's not familiar?

A: Accel is another debit network similar to Visa, Mastercard, Star, where it's another means to get your transaction home. They had a component of surcharge-free and we're putting that together with MoneyPass right now. 

And then the cool thing is that Fiserv and Accel have card-free cash, so we have a lot of card-free cash locations. And we have a lot of MoneyPass locations, so it's a really cool surcharge free offering, depending on what you're looking for.

Q: It seems like we're finally starting to see more interest around card-free now.

A: Right, and it's just a more sound, more secure way of getting, of getting a transaction done faster. 

We in the United States seem to be always behind on this kind of thing, but you see some of those statistics in Europe where a large percentage of transactions are contactless — those people that, instead of taking their card out, are tapping.

So, I think it's coming more and more, it's just going to be very similar to where we were with chip, which took a while to integrate. 

Q: What what's next for MoneyPass?

A: We'll be taking the value of MoneyPass and trying to integrate that with the existing Fiserv clients — and then vice versa. Right now the sales pipeline is just bursting, so at least for this year and going into next year, we'll be very busy with integrating.

We're also moving all the MoneyPass customers and all the bank and ISO customers from an Elan-U.S. Bank environment to new platforms. That's a two-year plan, and we're in the early stages of that because the sale just closed in November. But it's a pretty aggressive plan and it's just a matter of making sure there ae no customer interruptions and making sure that the customers are happy.