Born in 1983, Total System Services (TSYS) primarily provides payment processing services to financial companies and retailers across the globe. TSYS is the provider of secure and innovative payment solutions to clients spread over 80 different countries. The company has around 200 active clients and the company strives to unleash every related payment possibility for them and their business. TSYS is headquartered in Columbus, Georgia, and operates with approximately 12,800 employees. The parent company of TSYS is Global Payments which is a relatively young company. TSYS is running under the leadership of M. Troy Woods since 2014.
The Founding Story of Total System Services
The story of every successful company begins with finding a solution to a problem faced in daily life. If a person is vigilant enough to understand the pain points of commoners, one will get multiple business ideas to eradicate these problems. Something similar happened almost 133 years ago that led to the foundation of TSYS. One of the biggest foundational strengths of TSYS is that it always puts the needs of people first and finds various ways to solve their problems.
The history of TSYS traces back to the events of 1888 when a manager of a textile mill saw that his employees didn’t have a safe place to save their money. This got him thinking about how he could solve the problem for one of his employees and ended up building her a bank which became a striking trailblazer. This was a very innovative solution and in 1959 this bank operated as a part of Columbus Bank and Trust. In 1974, it started processing one of Georgia’s first credit cards for other banks. The company eventually emerged as Total System Services Inc in 1983 and became a public company.
Partnerships and Acquisitions
In 1983, after TSYS became a publicly-traded company it started making many acquisitions and expanding its presence. The company after filing its first IPO still operated under Columbus Bank and Trust (now known as Synovus) and was finally spun off in 2007. In the meantime, TSYS acquired a company called Clarity Payment Solutions in 2004 for $53 million. TSYS also signed a partnership with Visa Inc which was back in 1995 to merge its merchant processing services with those of Visa. In 2004, TSYS also started processing credit cards issued by JPMC, another well-known American investment bank.
In the last ten years, the company made a handful of acquisitions starting from acquiring a 51 percent stake in the merchant acquisition business of First National Bank of Omaha. After the acquisition, the business was renamed TSYS Merchant Solutions and the company acquired the rest 49 percent in 2011. The company acquired another business called TermNet in 2011. In 2012, the company entered into a joint partnership with Central Payment Co. LLC. In the same year, the company also acquired ProPay, a Utah-based company. TSYS made a big acquisition in July 2013 as it acquired Netspend for $1.4 billion. Some of the other companies that TSYS acquired in recent years are TransFit, Cayan, and iMobile3. In 2019, TSYS came under the acquisition of Global Payments, an American company providing financial technology services.
About Global Payments
Born in 2000, Global Payments is a leading financial service provider based in Atlanta. Jefferey. Sloan is the CEO of the company and M. Troy Woods (CEO of TSYS) is the Chairman of the Boards. The stock of Global Payments is a component of the S & P 500 stock market index as is publicly traded in the NYSE as GPN. Global Payments is also a Fortune 1000 company and its biggest market is in North America followed by Europe and Asia-Pacific. Global Payments have made plenty of acquisitions since 2000 but the merger with TSYS is the biggest acquisition in its history till now. In May 2019, Global Payments announced the merger with TSYS for $21.5 billion.
M. Troy Woods – CEO of Total System Services
M. Troy Woods is the CEO and President of TSYS who has significantly contributed to the company’s diversification strategies. Woods completed his undergraduate degree from Columbus State University and he also went to several banking schools including The Wharton School. Woods was a part of the Columbus Bank and Trust from 1970 to 1977 and again rejoined TSYS in 1987. Under the leadership of Woods, TSYS has become more of a people-centric company with a belief that payment should revolve around people and not the other way around.
Annasha Dey is an NIT student, who apart from studying engineering is also a content writer. She has a great interest in photography, writing, reading novels, and travelling as well. She is a foodie who loves socializing and hanging out with her friends. She is also a trained Kathak dancer and a big fashion enthusiast. Dey also loves watching TV series, which includes F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and Big Bang Theory. To be a better writer she prefers to read more