NEW YORK — The effort to move First Data Corp. from being a publicly traded company to being held privately by private equity firm Kolhberg, Kravis Roberts seems primed to go forward after the firm reached a compromise with the banks that will finance the deal.

The Wall Street Journal has reported that KKR agreed to introduce performance measurements into the deal that it is using to finance the move. Under the terms of the performance, the paper reported, KKR agreed that First Data will have to keep earnings at a certain ratio to its debt, but the private equity giant was able to resist demands from the bankers that it increase the interest rate on the money it was borrowing.

The paper reported that the banks sought the changes because they, in turn, will seek to sell parts of their debt as investments on the market. Investors made nervous by rapid market swings and the ongoing credit crunch were considered too skittish to purchase the debt without some concessions.

An estimated 500-1,000 credit unions process their card transactions on the First Data platform.