The new service is offered through an alliance with the Primax Payment Systems division of the T.K. Keith Co., a point-of-sale payment card processing company based in Wakefield, Mass.

Primax will give Fiserv a true turnkey product for financial institutions that want to work closely with and provide more value to business customers, said Patricia Hewitt, vice president of business development for Fiserv Credit Processing Services.

"The small business market is rapidly expanding and our financial institutions need to be able to offer a full set of services to their small business customers," Hewitt said. "With this program, our clients will benefit by being able to offer a state-of-the-art merchant processing program, which we have not been able to do in the past."

According to Hewitt, the alliance came about not only because of the more than two decades of expertise that T. K. Keith Co./Primax has to offer, but also because of the companies' excellent reputation for personalized service and the ability to quickly execute programs.

"This allows us to effortlessly integrate their offerings into our overall services," she said. "Their corporate values are very similar to Fiserv's and they were able to line up nicely with the way we deliver services into the marketplace, meaning higher customer intimacy, higher service touch, and being able to offer real value in the form of services and revenue to our financial institution clients."

Ted Keith, president and CEO of T.K. Keith Co., said that in today's marketplace, it's difficult for community financial institutions to keep up with complex technology at the merchant point-of-sale as well as with industry compliance issues.

"It is a challenge for a community financial institution to provide services unless they have the support and guidance of a company with a true partnership approach to business, which both Fiserv and T. K. Keith Co. deliver," Keith said. "The arrangement we have with Fiserv allows Fiserv clients to have a merchant processing relationship with their commercial customers, while we provide all of the necessary services in the background - the operations, the systems and management of point-of-sale. This allows financial institutions to focus on the commercial business relationships and deliver the same products that the major national acquirers are doing without having to build and maintain the internal infrastructure."

Keith said Primax has two unique qualities that enable it to meet Fiserv's new merchant services offering. "First, we use multiple processing platforms to deliver a wide array of point-of-sale interfaces," he said. "We also are flexible and adaptable. We customize our relationships with each of our clients and spend a great deal of time understanding the client's business and market needs."

As described by Keith, the strategic relationship offers benefits to both Fiserv and Primax. "The financial institution can now provide best-in-breed processing systems and products to their commercial customers coupled with superior service," Keith said. "In addition, we bring Fiserv the expertise in dealing with community banks and credit unions in the merchant acquiring business and they bring to us a new client base, as well as the critical mass that will allow us to grow and improve."