Pineapple Payments was a fast-growing reseller platform with its own gateway for about five years. Then Fiserv bought it. If your account came through Pineapple, a Pineapple sub-reseller, or the Transax gateway, you are a Fiserv merchant now, most likely on CardPointe tooling. This page explains the history, what you are on, and what to check.
The history
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2014 | Brian Shanahan leaves CardConnect |
| 2016 | Shanahan founds Pineapple Payments |
| 2017 | First Data acquires CardConnect |
| August 2018 | Pineapple acquires Transax, a Chicago payments software company with a full-service gateway and omni-channel tools |
| 2019 | Fiserv acquires First Data, and with it CardConnect and CardPointe |
| March 2021 | Fiserv agrees to acquire Pineapple Payments for $206 million; closes in the second quarter |
| Today | pineapplepayments.com redirects to cardconnect.com |
What you are on
Merchants acquired through Pineapple continued to be processed by Fiserv, and Transax and Pineapple’s value-added tools continued to be distributed by resellers. In practice most accounts now use CardConnect’s CardPointe platform or Transax tooling on Fiserv processing:
- Virtual terminal for keyed and stored-card transactions.
- Hosted payment pages and hosted fields for websites.
- Tokenized vault and recurring billing.
- Reporting, mobile acceptance, terminal support.
- API and a catalog of software integrations, including many practice management and vertical products.
CardPointe is a good gateway. The question is not the software; it is the pricing and the tie to Fiserv.
What to check
- Pricing model. CardConnect has historically marketed interchange-plus, but reseller channels set their own. Look for qualified, mid-qualified and non-qualified lines (tiered) versus an interchange detail section with a stated markup.
- Effective rate. Total fees divided by volume. Method on the statement guide.
- Fees. Gateway, PCI, statement, annual, minimum, and any fee added since the acquisition. Rate and fee changes are disclosed on the statement footer.
- Term. Reseller agreements from the Pineapple era commonly ran multi-year with auto-renewal. Know the end date and the termination fee.
- Equipment. Placed, purchased or leased. Leases are the expensive line.
Stay or move
Stay if the integration into your software is CardPointe-specific and the effective rate is fair, or if Fiserv will re-price to competitive interchange-plus. The tooling is not the problem.
Move if the rate is tiered or over 2.5% on a normal mix, the agreement is auto-renewing with a penalty, you want dual pricing at the counter on an independent processor with online on the same account, or you want processing that is not tied to one acquirer. Because CardPointe runs on Fiserv, leaving is a gateway and processor migration together: new merchant account, independent gateway (accept.blue, NMI, Fluidpay), vault export from CardPointe encrypted to the new gateway, remap, recurring recreated, live tests, cutover. Three to five weeks with stored cards.
The same considerations apply to Elavon Converge, which is covered separately, and the receiving-gateway comparison is on the Authorize.net alternatives page.