Payments companies are conspicuously among the fastest-growing ventures in the nation, according to the newly released Inc 500 for 2012.
Of the 28 financial services companies on the 2012 Inc 500, more than a third of them are payments companies, and most of those offer merchant processing services.
In fact, the No. 1 company on the Inc 500 this year is Unified Payments, which has scored a three-year revenue growth rate of 23,646.3% — yes, there are supposed to be five digits in that rate. Unified has been rolling up merchant processors since its founding in 2007.
The FI companies on the Inc 500, which ranks the fastest-growing private companies in the US, are, in order of growth:
- Unified Payments
- Integrity Funding
- Capital Payments
- HighTower Advisors
- Merchant Services
- Compete Merchant Solutions
- Jackson Hunter Morris & Knight
- Credit Karma
- Century Payments
- Transcendent One
- Digital Risk
- New American Mortgage
- Victor Securities
- JG Tax Group
- Resource Financial
- Cinium Financial Services
- On Deck
- New Penn Financial
- REPAY — Realtime Electronic Payments
- TMG Financial Services
- Allied Wallet
- Boston Technologies
- Rescue One Financial
- Avondale
- ClearOne Advantage
- Braintree
- Stonegate Mortgage
- MCT Trading
The strong showing among payments companies on the Inc 500 seems to indicate that the shift to electronic payments continues to fuel rapid growth for certain companies. Unified Payments founder Oleg Firer told Inc magazine that growth in merchant processing continues to march on.
We continued to grow organically through the recession as well. As our society has become more and more cashless, payment processing has become economically agnostic. We make money no matter what the economy is doing.
With 2011 revenue of $59.5 million, apparently it’s a lot of money. We see that continuing.
[Note: As of Aug. 17, 2012, Inc had not updated its Inc 500 website here with the 2012 ranking.