Community Bankers Merchant Services (cbms)
“Can a bank-channel-only payment processor sustain independent growth, or does it inevitably become an acquisition target for a scaled non-bank processor seeking community FI distribution?”
Founded1989
HQSpringdale, Arkansas, United States
FoundersBob Morris
IndustryInfrastructure / Payments
The story
Founded in 1989 by Bob Morris, CBMS spent over three decades as a niche payment processing intermediary exclusively focused on community and regional bank distribution channels. The company offered credit card processing, merchant accounts, and merchant cash advances to SMBs through its bank partners rather than selling direct. In August 2022, Celero Commerce acquired CBMS to expand its financial institution network, effectively folding CBMS into Celero's larger non-bank payment processor platform; the CBMS brand now redirects to Celero Commerce.
Product timeline
1989
Founded by Bob Morris in Arkansas as a provider of electronic transaction processing through community and regional banks.· pivot
1990
Formally incorporated as Community Bankers Merchant Services, Inc., operating under the dba Merchant Processing.· pivot
2022
Acquired by Celero Commerce (a portfolio company of LLR Partners) on August 18, 2022, expanding Celero's FI network and bringing total merchants served to over 53,000.· acquisition
The stack
2 layers disclosed in Community Bankers Merchant Services (cbms)’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
Fifth Third Bank (acquiring/processing partner)Wells Fargo Bank (acquiring/processing partner)
Lending
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
1 more provider across 1 layer, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.