Elavon buys processing biz

The KNS reports, "Elavon, a leading U.S. payment processing corporation with a large operations center in Knoxville, has purchased the merchant processing portfolio of Citizens National Bank in Sevier County..." Elavon is part of U.S. Bancorp.

Transcard CEO listed

Chattanooga-based Transcard yesterday announced its CEO, Craig Fuller (left), has been named one of the top five rising stars of the prepaid and stored-value card industry. The release is here.

Payment venture relo's to N'ville

Nashville-based Pace Investment Partners has joined with other investors to buy Century Bankcard Services, based in California. The CEO and CFO of that company will be based here in Nashville, and other employees may relocated to Nashville, as well. The VNC story is here.

edo Interactive Update

edo Interactive CEO Ed Braswell (at left), 51, is banking on a boom in his startup's business: In a recent interview with VNC, Braswell said he believes that before year's-end, "we'll be managing some of the largest card programs in the country, some of the largest brands." He would not provide details, but the statement reinforces the sense edo may focus more on B2B customers who control strong brands, rather than on consumers. (So far, Coca-Cola, H&R Block and Baskin-Robbins have partnered with edo.) Braswell pointed out he has raised $15 million in outside capital, and has recently heavied-up his management ranks, preparing for a surge. In September, he announced hiring veteran tech marketer Jay Graves as edo's chief technology officer; and, Lisa McGinty as vice president for business development. As of Sept. 25, edo Interactive had 21 employees, 18 of them based here. What do they do all day? In what he calls his "one-floor elevator pitch," Braswell said edo is creating "a new advertising channel for retailers with financial card products." Edo isn't putting all its eggs in its own prepaid debit cards (represented by its Facecard flagship and nine other branded cards). Instead, the company is stepping-up its effort to get financial institutions and other brand-owners to integrate edo's Prewards technology and advertising platform into their operations, expanding an important revenue stream. Touting "edo Technology Solutions," the edo site says the company "is a pioneer in developing technologies that leverage pre-existing global, point of sale (POS) payments infrastructure along with modern social networking communities for digital marketing purposes." Earlier VNC coverage of edo Interactive is here.