Business Financial Services Acquires Entrust Merchant Solutions

A representative for Coral Springs, FL-based Business Financial Services (BFS) has confirmed that the company has acquired Entrust Merchant Solutions. Entrust is a well established and widely known NY-based ISO/broker shop that was founded in 2007. As part of the deal, Entrust CEO Ilya Fridman will remain with the company and for the time being, the Entrust name will not change. They are now a part of the BFS family of companies however.

The news comes on the heels of a major milestone. Just a month ago, BFS announced that they had funded more than $1 Billion since inception, earning them a spot as one of the industry’s largest players.

The Entrust acquisition is representative of an M&A trend taking place in the industry. Below is a list of some of the more recent ones:

• Enova International acquired The Business Backer (for $27 million)
• Merchants Capital Access acquired Reliant Funding
• Capital Z Partners acquired Pearl Capital
• World Business Lenders acquired the business loan operations of Plan B Growth (and has made 11 acquisitions total over the past 12 months)

Prior to the deal, Entrust was an ISO for BFS. Over the last few days though, some insiders speculated that the relationship had suddenly grown even tighter. It turns out they were right.

Sean Murray is the President and Chief Editor of deBanked and the founder of the Broker Fair Conference. Connect with me on LinkedIn or follow me on twitter. You can view all future deBanked events here.