PSCU Buys Juniper Payments

PSCU announced Wednesday that it has bought a Kansas company that provides inter-bank transaction and reporting systems to credit unions and small banks.

The St. Petersburg, Fla., payments CUSO did not disclose how much it paid to acquire the Wichita-based Juniper Payments, LLC from PITECO S.p.A. of Milan, Italy and two principal owners, who will continue with the company under PSCU.

A news release from PSCU described Juniper Payments as “the largest cloud-based non-bank third-party provider of inter-bank transaction and reporting systems in the United States.” It serves financial institutions and correspondents through software as a service. It provides interfaces and automation to financial institutions with its payment entry, transaction management and connectivity to the Federal Reserve and third-party providers.

Chuck Fagan, PSCU’s president/CEO, said the addition of Juniper Payments enables PSCU to directly participate in faster and real-time payments technology that will provide its member financial institutions with managed connectivity to the Federal Reserve, The Clearing House and the forthcoming FedNow service.

The Federal Reserve is developing the FedNow payments platform to allow any U.S. financial institution — regardless of size —to offer instant payments to its customers, while funds will settle between financial institutions instantly. The Fed plans to launch the FedNow service in 2023.

“This strategic expansion of our product suite aligns with PSCU’s commitment to broadening and diversifying our footprint in financial services, while furthering our financial institutions’ ability to deliver personalized, connected experiences for their accountholders,” Fagan said.

Juniper will expand PSCU’s services for its financial institutions to support additional payments types. Through the acquisition, PSCU will add multi-tiered payments — including ACH processing and domestic/international wire remittance — to its solutions set, as well as a virtual back-office payments gateway, member and business-originated instant payments and reporting, compliance, risk management and monitoring services.

“We are excited to join PSCU, a company whose values and culture are aligned with our own,” Jon Budd, CEO of Juniper Payments, said. “As an integrated financial technology solutions provider, PSCU’s resources and end-to-end portfolio of products, solutions and services will provide added value for its clients.”

“PSCU will continue to invest in the Juniper business and technology, which I’m confident will further unlock Juniper’s potential to enable financial institutions of all sizes to be competitive in this evolving space,” Budd said.

A group of community bankers founded the company as LendingTools.com in 2000 to fill a gap in available internet technology designed specifically for financial institutions. It delivered a variety of affordable, web-based solutions to streamline internal banking operations, including lending analysis.

This led to the creation of its Correspondent Gateway service that now serves over 3,500 institutions with over 20,000 daily users. It has expanded its correspondent service model to meet the needs of larger commercial banks and credit unions for wire transfer and international transaction services.

In 2017, LendingTools.com became Juniper Payments.