TabaPay intends to buy Denver-based Transact Bank, the money movement platform announced Wednesday.
The transaction, aided by $155 million in financing led by growth equity firm FTV Capital, would give TabaPay a banking charter through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency but also requires approval from the Federal Reserve.
TabaPay made headlines in 2024, when it floated a $9.7 million offer to buy the assets of the fintech Synapse, which declared bankruptcy a day or so earlier.
Weeks later, however, TabaPay terminated the agreement “based on failure to meet the purchase agreement closing conditions.”
The closing conditions required Evolve Bank & Trust, Synapse’s banking partner, to fully fund the “for benefit of” accounts, but the bank failed to do so, Synapse’s CEO told Banking Dive at the time.
TabaPay said Wednesday it expects the Transact Bank deal to close in the fourth quarter of 2026. Once the deal is complete, Transact will rebrand as TabaBank.
“The planned launch of TabaBank will bring payments and banking capabilities under one roof, offering our clients a more integrated experience while continuing to work alongside our network of bank partners,” TabaPay CEO Rodney Robinson said in a statement.
TabaPay counts 20 partner banks in the U.S. and Canada, and is set to process more than $100 billion in payments this year, the company said. It ranks as the fifth-largest card-not-present processor, by number of transactions, in the U.S., and serves one-third of American households, according to Wednesday’s announcement.
TabaPay enables instant payments and payouts across card and bank rails through a single application programming interface.
FTV’s investment is meant to accelerate TabaPay’s product roadmap, as the company continues to develop merchant liquidity solutions and pursue further acquisitions. It also aims to boost TabaPay’s sponsorship capabilities for merchants, independent sales organizations, payment facilitators and other customers.
In exchange for the investment, FTV partner Robert Anderson will join TabaPay’s board.
“As payments infrastructure becomes increasingly complex and mission-critical, TabaPay stands out for its scale, reliability and profitable growth,” Anderson said in a statement. “We’ve known Rodney and the team for several years and have been continually impressed by the differentiated platform they’ve built, as well as the trust they’ve earned from many of the industry’s most demanding financial services companies.”
In a LinkedIn post Wednesday, TabaPay said the Transact Bank deal “represents the next step in building a more vertically integrated money movement platform for our clients — bringing together TabaPay’s payments infrastructure with expanded banking capabilities.”
An OCC banking charter would let TabaPay access Fed services, including FedNow and ACH payments mechanisms, and the ability to operate under the federal regulatory framework rather than a patchwork of state money transmitter licenses.
Most TabaPay clients use multiple bank partners, the company said, adding that TabaBank would allow the provider to offer its products together under a single bank and give clients a unified merchant account.
