TransFirst, First American Appoint New ISO And Sales Executives

TransFirst, a Dallas-based processor that has grown significantly through acquisition over the past two years, has appointed two new executives to run its divisions concerned with independent sales organizations, agents, and resellers. Ryan O'Connor, formerly with Nova Information Systems, a unit of U.S. Bank, has become president of TransFirst's ISA services division. His responsibilities include the management of agent reseller relationships, including those TransFirst took on with the acquisition earlier this year of a merchant portfolio from Fifth Third Bank (Digital Transactions News, March 12). Also newly appointed is Eric Barton, now vice president of business development for TransFirst's ISO Services Division. Barton is a former executive with Chase Merchant Services LLC and Paymentech LP. TransFirst processes $18.5 billion annually for more than 150,000 merchants and 760 banks. The acquisition of the Fifth Third portfolio brought to TransFirst 70,000 mostly small merchants doing $7.5 billion annually in credit and debit card transactions. It also meant TransFirst, which had historically relied on agent banks, added a significant ISO and merchant-level sales agent presence to its stable of third-party sales organizations. Meanwhile, First American Payment Systems LP, Fort Worth, Texas, has appointed Russ Goebel senior vice president of sales and marketing and Rusty Martz vice president of sales. Goebel formerly was with Retriever Payment Systems. Martz comes to First American from Sterling Technologies. First American processes for a portfolio of 75,000 merchants.