Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
NMI announced early Tuesday it has acquired Fee Navigator, a provider of analysis for acquirers looking to price services for merchants. Terms were not disclosed.
Schaumburg, Ill.-based NMI says the deal brings merchant-pricing capabilities supported by AI, adding to an arsenal of services the processor offers to independent sales organizations, independent software vendors, and agents that sell payments processing to small and medium-size sellers. The move comes at a time when card-acceptance costs have grown into a sore point for many merchants, leading to pressure on sales agents and their processors to support pricing decisions with more precise analytics.
Fee Navigator, based in Philadelphia and founded seven years ago, says joining NMI will broaden its prospect base among ISOs and ISVs as these agents work to make accurate pricing decisions. “Merchant pricing has always been one of the hardest parts of payments to get right,” notes Adrian Talapan, chief executive and cofounder of Fee Navigator, in a statement.
NMI’s deal for Fee Navigator follows on the heels of its acquisition last month of Dwolla, a Des Moines, Iowa-based processor, though the two moves are of a piece, according to Steve Pinado, NMI’s chief executive. “With Dwolla, we expanded the ways our partners can move money. With Fee Navigator, we are adding AI-powered intelligence that helps them price, optimize, and grow their business,” he says in a statement. Terms of the Dwolla acquisition were also not released.
Pinado indicates the growing importance of pricing analytics as merchant discontent over acceptance fees grows. “Merchant pricing has become increasingly important as card acceptance costs continue to rise,” he says in a statement.
Some observers also see other connections that may have led to the deal for Fee Navigator so soon after the Dwolla acquisition. “To me, it tracks perfectly,” notes Cliff Gray, principal at Gray Consulting Ventures LLC. “NMI acquires Dwolla to broaden their alternative payments options, then acquires and leverages Fee Navigator to optimize pricing recommendations and margin opportunities, especially to low-cost alternatives like Dwolla.”
The deal will also ease and quicken pricing decisions in a highly competitive merchant-processing market, observers say. “Fee Navigator will give [NMI] something most processors, gateways, and embedded-payments platforms don’t have, automated pricing intelligence and margin analytics,” says Eric Grover, principal at the consultancy Intrepid Ventures.
Private-equity backed NMI processes for 1.2 million merchants, supporting online, in-app, in-store, and mobile payments, the company says. Fee Navigator makes recommendations to clients based on its analysis of merchant pricing, the company says.
