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In a Nutshell: Talus offers payment solutions to help businesses thrive. The company completed two acquisitions in 2023 to boost its capabilities and provide more value to its customers. Talus seeks to learn about its customers’ businesses to position them to gain efficiencies and grow. The company’s knowledgeable in-house customer service team answers customer questions and helps solve their problems.
When consumers need a tool to help them perform a task, they often purchase it instead of making it themselves. For example, a marathoner in need of new running shoes can buy a pair of sneakers online from a reputable retailer, confident that the shoes will suit their needs.
Mergers and acquisitions in the business space allow companies to realize efficiencies, create synergies, and ultimately serve their customers better.
Talus, a provider of payment solutions, originated in 2006. We spoke with Kim Fitzsimmons, the company’s CEO, to learn more about its innovative offerings and recent acquisitions.
Alvarez and Marsal (A&M), a private equity firm, purchased Talus near the end of 2016. A&M established new leadership at the company and redirected its strategy, bringing Fitzsimmons on to lead the charge in 2020. Together, they introduced a more targeted and thoughtful approach to acquisitions that resulted in Talus serving different types of businesses than the company had worked with previously.
Talus completed two acquisitions in the fourth quarter of 2023. In October, it purchased a merchant services provider company, and in December, it acquired a technology firm that provides SaaS-based applications to merchants, which they rebranded Talus Pay.
“It was really important to us that the merchant services provider we acquired had many synergies including lots of partners that were building distributors concentrated on working with companies engaged in field services,” Fitzsimmons said. “That acquisition married nicely with our December acquisition, which was motivated by pure technology and became our Talus Pay offering. Coupling both these acquisitions really matched up nicely.”
Talus reviewed numerous SaaS-based businesses before targeting the companies it acquired in 2023. Talus valued and sought to own an integrated payments platform it could build and improve upon over time, Fitzsimmons said, and these acquisitions helped the company realize its goal.
Employees Make the Difference at Talus
Talus now works with much larger merchants than the company served in its early days. Talus serves all types of businesses with a concentration in field and in-home services, restaurants, retailers, and automotive companies. Fitzsimmons said the company will leverage the technology from its acquisitions to serve companies it partners with.
Talus anticipates using its wholly-owned SaaS-based solution to help its customers grow their businesses and help them with tasks such as scheduling, invoicing, inventory control, customer relationship management, funds disbursement management, as well as helping meet traditional payment needs.
“There are a number of vertically integrated payment software platforms out there,” Fitzsimmons said. “But we appreciate the fact that we’re able to offer business solutions, as opposed to just talking about payments.”
Fitzsimmons said the employees of Talus are also one of the many things that distinguishes the company from its competitors. Talus employs deeply trained experts in the payments industry, but it also counts individuals who are newer to the payments arena among its key employees, , bringing new ideas and perspective to the team.
Businesses appreciate connecting to a live person when experiencing issues with their payment services. Fitzsimmons said if a company can’t immediately access help to solve a payment problem, then the issue could severely harm the business’s ability to operate effectively.
“We have some of the brightest, tech-savvy people I’ve ever worked with on our teams,” Fitzsimmons said. “Our engineers, sales, service, and support teams are knowledgeable and full of energy. It really is our people that make the difference, and we want our customers to actually be able to speak with a real live person when they call us, when they call us, rather than having to email for help or try to get help from online chat or frequently asked questions user community posts. Helping our customers grow their businesses is important to us, so we want to be readily available in whatever method they prefer.”
Integrated Payments Streamline Operations
When Talus engages with a new customer, it first seeks to understand the company’s business and how it can help the customer reach its goals most effectively. Fitzsimmons said payment processors that force a company to use certain products without first learning about their business may not be serving their customers’ best interests in the long run.
“We teach our people to learn all they can about a business and its needs,” Fitzsimmons said. “Eventually, we’ll discuss pricing, but that isn’t a normal part of our initial conversations with a business anymore.”
Fitzsimmons said the company ensures its customers are comfortable using the solutions they’ve purchased and helps them configure products properly, so they realize all of the benefits the solution has to offer.
The risk management division of Talus monitors payments to flag suspicious activity. Fitzsimmons said the company reaches out promptly to businesses to learn more about potentially suspicious transactions that may require closer inspection. The last thing businesses need is to be taken advantage of by fraudsters that could potentially result in significant amounts of lost revenue.
Talus values customer feedback, and most of the feedback the company receives comes from conversations between customers and Talus salespeople or a member of the company’s customer service team.
Customers can also submit feedback through the company’s client portal. Fitzsimmons said Talus logs the input it receives from the client portal and provides solutions directly to customers in a timely manner.
Talus employs metrics to assess its financial performance and the effectiveness of its customer service. In terms of client services, the company measures metrics such as how long it takes it to answer a customer’s call — similar to any other call center.
“We’ve got to make sure our top line is growing while managing our margins, which can be difficult in this space,” Fitzsimmons said. “Payment margins tend to compress, which is why acquiring a company with vertical integrations really does help. Talus Pay vertically integrated software aids our customers revenue growth which is mutually beneficial for everyone.”
Talus Supports the Communities It Serves
Talus donates funds to help support America’s veterans.
Talus believes in supporting initiatives that strengthen communities. The company partners with America’s Homeless Veterans to support the organization’s mission to eradicate homelessness for the country’s veterans. Fitzsimmons said many of the business owners Talus works with are veterans.
The company donates a percentage of its revenue to America’s Homeless Veterans programs that help veterans access jobs as well as physical and mental health resources.
“At Talus, we feel the need to give back and support a good cause,” Fitzsimmons said. “Partnerships like the one we enjoy with America’s Homeless Veterans are extremely important to us. We’ve spent a lot of time building out our partner channel and helping them grow.”
The Bottom Line
Fitzsimmons said the future is bright for Talus. The company’s recent acquisitions have fortified its suite of solutions, enabling Talus to provide more value to its customers.
“We’ve gone through a big transformation at Talus, and the best is yet to come,” Fitzsimmons said. “Adding a new platform and integrating it with our risk engine and client services capabilities is what we’re really going to build upon. We’re eager to capture some of the market share from other service providers that are out there.”