Former Mercury Payment Systems Executive and Chairman of The Board of Jetpay Lends 31 Years of Experience to Expand Fee Navigator’s Reach
PA, United States, 20 October 2020 – Fee Navigator, the award-winning fintech company that launched the first AI-powered instant merchant statement analysis service, today announced the addition of Larry Stone to its Advisory Board. Concurrent with this appointment, Stone also acquired a minority stake in the company, to help further accelerate its growth.
Fee Navigator is a technology service that relies on AI to instantly determine the profitability of an incumbent merchant processor, including the identification of marked-up interchange categories and potential interchange optimization savings. This capability supports anyone in merchant services to save time & money, perform superior analysis, and more easily compete. For the providers interested in demonstrating transparency to their customers, Fee Navigator offers unbiased, neutral third-party automated rate tracking and statement comparison.
Founded by tech entrepreneur Adrian Talapan and industry veteran Ion Craciun, Fee Navigator helps the payments industry compete smarter and more efficiently by leveraging digital marketing, automated workflows, AI-powered analysis, and soon advanced business intelligence tools. Their customers – small and large ISOs, banks, and ISVs – put their leads on autopilot, price deals faster, retain their merchants longer, and use the time saved for higher-value activities.
“I am truly excited to join Fee Navigator as both investor and key advisor, said Stone. “In my three decades in the payment processing industry, I’ve never seen anything as effective as Fee Navigator’s AI instant merchant statement analysis.“
Stone joins former CEO of Paysafe Global Payment Processing OB Rawls and Aurora Payments CEO Brian Goudie as they help guide Fee Navigator’s product and commercialization strategy.
“Larry’s strategic thinking, entrepreneurial experience, and industry reach further strengthen our company’s leadership as we continue to build the fastest, simplest, and smartest way to acquire and retain merchants,” said Adrian Talapan, Co-Founder and CEO of Fee Navigator. He continued, “Given the thousands of different statement types out there, and the confusion about pricing models and fees, our technology provides an automated way to perform the analysis so the industry could focus on what matters most: helping merchants succeed. As we continue on the path of AI-powered automation, we envision offering the industry real-time benchmarking tools to further inform and elevate their decision making.”
Co-founder Ion Craciun added, “I used to find whatever company Larry was involved with to be a fierce competitor – for example, getting close to his merchants at Mercury was an almost impossible task. However, fast forward a few years, and I am incredibly excited and honored to be working with him. His track record investing in the industry should qualify him for the payment processing hall of fame.”
The addition of Stone, Rawls and Goudie exemplifies Fee Navigator’s commitment to serving the payments industry. By firming up its foundations with the strength of these major industry players, Fee Navigator anchors its place in the payments space while creatively layering its innovative technology within the existing structure of merchant services.
ABOUT LARRY STONE
Stone is a seasoned payments industry veteran with 31 years of experience in merchant acquisition and payment systems. He has done everything from store-to-store payment processing sales starting in 1988 in NYC when he was 23 years old while working for Citibank where he became the #1 sales executive for four consecutive years, to starting two national independent sales organizations in New York City, which he sold to public companies in the 1990’s (PMT and Concord EFS), and subsequently he became a major investor in both Mercury Payment Systems and Jetpay Corporation.
Through Larry’s involvement in Mercury Payment Systems, he helped shepherd a majority sale to Silver Lake Partners 2010, which subsequently sold to Vantiv in 2014. In 2016, Larry became Chairman of the Board of Nasdaq traded company Jetpay, which was sold to NCR in December 2018.
He currently serves on the boards of Olivam Partners, LP and Clutch Holdings Inc. He resides in Villanova, Pennsylvania with his wife Holly and three children. Larry serves on the Advisory Board for the Marcus Center for Integrated Medicine for Jefferson Hospital and devotes time and supports various other charitable organizations.
ABOUT FEE NAVIGATOR
Fee Navigator is the award-winning, self-serve, enterprise-grade AI-powered service that allows acquirers, banks, and technology providers to instantly analyze merchant statements and accelerate merchant acquisition and retention. Their services streamline number-crunching, produce automated insights and help the industry sell faster, while simultaneously increasing merchant retention and agent satisfaction. By facilitating and enhancing commerce, Fee Navigator accelerates the growth of the merchant payments industry. For more information, please visit www.feenavigator.com.
