Delaware debit card firm bought by Wis. company

More of our tax dollars are wasted in subsidies to another failed company.

By Johnathan Starkey

Maverick Network Solutions, a debit card company based in Brandywine Hundred, was snapped up last week by Fiserv, a Brookfield, Wis.-based $4.1 billion financial services firm.

Maverick, founded in 2006 by MBNA veteran Jim Shanahan and three others, provides private-label MasterCard and VISA debit cards for retailers, as well as reloadable prepaid incentive cards for employers.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. A spokeswoman for Fiserv, which is publicly traded, said the company planned to keep Maverick's roughly 10 employees, including chief executive Phil Valvardi.

The state of Delaware lost money on the deal.

A venture capital fund run by the Delaware Economic Development Office invested $370,000 in Maverick between 2008 and 2009 and took an ownership stake. It received only $146,000 from last week's sale, according to the office. DEDO has since abandoned the venture business, spokeswoman Nikki Lavoie said.

It's unclear how other investors fared. Wilmington-based venture fund Innovation Ventures was also an investor, but David Freschman, managing principal of the fund, declined to comment.

In a statement announcing the acquisition, Rahul Gupta, president of Fiserv's card services unit, said that integrating Maverick's prepaid card technology will fit into the company's "overall strategy to enhance our payments leadership through delivering next generation solutions."

Fiserv declined to comment further. Maverick did not respond to requests for a comment.

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