Insight Report: Global Trends in Merchant Acquiring

With a huge influx of new payment solutions into the industry, both opportunities and challenges for merchant acquirers have reached a new level. There is a significant shift from conventional services, such as accepting mag-stripe debit/credit cards, mail and telephone orders, to new acceptance channels as a result of e-commerce/m-commerce, contactless technology, mobile point of sale (mPOS) and omni-retailing.

Digital-only channels and alternative instruments such as mobile payments have created opportunities for new market participants; such as payment gateway providers and payment service providers (PSPs). Payment gateways are software applications that act as a virtual POS. Similar to conventional POS terminals; they allow secure exchange of card and bank account information with the processor.

PSPs usually assume a wider role, offering multiple payment options to merchants through a single platform. For instance, in addition to credit and debit cards, a PSP can offer options such as cash or card-on-delivery payments, e-wallets, prepaid cards, vouchers, and check-processing services. Since these are independent intermediaries, they are also able to integrate multiple domestic and international payment options in a single platform. PSPs can also offer value-added services such as risk management, fraud protection, data analytics, integration into shopping cart infrastructure, and warehousing facilities to merchants. Merchants can sign up to a PSP which will offer them one or a multitude of acquirers, or they will pick an acquirer and the PSP will integrate them. However, some acquirers also offer these services directly. For instance, Worldline offers all the support for hundreds of payment instruments in an e-commerce environment, which it offers in bricks-and mortar-stores and for all sizes of merchant account. Moreover, some e-commerce leaders such as Amazon can also carry out acquiring and processing in-house.

Many PSPs focus on multi-country service offerings because of the complexity involved in linking two different acquirers in each country. This allows PSPs to carve out a niche business proposition: several PSPs such as PayPal, Sage and Stripe perform the role of merchant aggregators as well. This further complicates the classification of different market participants in e-commerce acquiring.

Scope

Analysis of the top-line card-acquiring market size at both a global and regional level

Rankings of the top-10 merchant acquirers globally

A snapshot of the industry structure involving card transactions acquired at point of sale (POS) terminals

Insight on the key emerging trends influencing the market dynamics of the merchant acquiring industry

Analysis of growth opportunities in the global merchant acquiring industry

Detail on the key strategic deals and investments between January 2013 and May 2015

Insight on the role of merchant aggregators in targeting untapped markets

Key Highlights

In what ways are the lines between business areas controlled by different market participants becoming more blurred?

What have the challenges imposed by regulation and demand for the latest technology prompted banks to do with their acquiring businesses? Which key benefits have merchants experienced in conjunction with this?

Why has the industry moved towards price competition? In what ways has the market become troublesome for acquirers?

How has card acquiring become more accessible to micro merchants and small businesses? What are the key benefits that technology is providing?

Which key development in the industry is delivering advantages in service offerings?

Reasons to buy

Understand the changing dynamics of merchant acquiring and gain insights into key technology.

Understand competitive threats from new market entrants and emerging opportunities.

Gain insights into investment trends.

Understand how organizations will be affected by the changing industry dynamics.

Companies mentioned

CUP Merchant Services

First Data

Bank of America Merchant Services

Vantiv

Chase Paymentech Solutions

WorldPay

Global Payments

Commercial and Industrial Bank of China

Elavon

Citi ...