Security Pacific to Relocate Merged Credit-Card Units

Security Pacific Corp. said Friday that it will combine its three credit-card processing facilities, including one in Glendale, and move them to a new site in Arizona.

The Glendale credit-card operation is the largest of the Los Angeles banking company’s three centers, employing 420 people. Security Pacific has another in Seattle, which employs 200 people. The smallest one employs 61 people in Phoenix.

A Security Pacific spokeswoman said all of the current employees will be offered jobs at the Phoenix center. She added that an effort will be made to find jobs elsewhere in the company for Glendale and Seattle employees who choose not to move. If other jobs cannot be found, she said, employees will receive severance benefits.

The credit-card facilities operate 24 hours a day, processing transactions for purchases made with MasterCard and Visa credit cards issued by Security Pacific. The three facilities combined handle 1.5 million accounts with total balances of more than $1.5 billion.

Security Pacific, parent of Security Pacific National Bank, disclosed in April that it was considering combining the three facilities into one as a major cost-saving measure. Security Pacific now has three centers because it acquired banks in Arizona and Washington that had their own processing facilities.

To Start by Year-End

Security Pacific said it also considered sites in California, Oregon, Nevada and Washington. It said Arizona was selected because workers are plentiful, operating costs are expected to be lower and because various laws and regulations there are less strict than in some other states, such as California.

The banking company said it expects to start consolidating the facilities by the end of the year.