All articles by Verdict Staff
Verdict Staff
Turkey’s debit opportunity
Turkey’s young population and growing economy have helped it become a market with rich opportunities for banks and card issuers. After consistent credit card growth rates for most of the decade, the industry now needs to turn its attention to increasing debit usage in the continuing drive for profits.
Turkish banks face credit card legislation
The Turkish government has submitted legislation to the countrys parliament that, if passed, would limit the interest rates on credit cards to twice the one-month Central Bank deposit rate (currently 1.35 percent).
First Data teams up with EUFISERV
In order to meet SEPA framework requirements and better serve a new class of payment institutions created by the European Commissions Payment Services Directive (PSD), electronic payment processing giant First Data has announced an agreement with pan-European banking network EUFISERV with the intention of expanding and developing the European interbank processing network that is managed by the organisation.
Another way to save the change…
Bank of America came up with the concept of encouraging greater debit card usage at the POS by attaching a savings programme to the debit card that automatically rounded up the purchase amount to the nearest dollar, and depositing the difference into a linked Bank of America savings account.
Where are the multinational merchants?
US payment consultancy First Annapolis has thrown the spotlight on the growing importance of multinational merchants to the acquiring industry. Analyst Josh Allen and managing partner Marc Abbey give a brief overview of the largest players in the industry.If your view of the world is that over a strategic time horizon, a small number of multinational acquirers will generate massive scale through multinational merchants, than the geographic patterns and tendencies of such merchants become quite interesting. Many national merchant markets tend to be highly concentrated. For example the top ten retailers in France control 43 percent of retail sales; the top ten retailers in the UK control 35 percent; in Spain, 25 percent, in Germany 36 percent, etc (interestingly, the US is much less concentrated). Therefore, it has been possible for an acquirer to sign a small number of merchants and generate a tremendous amount of scale with the accompanying cost, product, and other benefits this phenomenon has been a dominant strategy theme in acquiring markets the world over. Under our best estimate, the top 250 retailers in the world (not even considering the large travel and entertainment merchants) control on the order of 15 percent to 20 percent of global payment card volume, creating the tantalising prospect of a multinational acquirer generating perhaps decisive scale globally through the signing of just a relatively few merchants. A few acquirers are obviously investing to develop the capability to serve multinational merchants at least regionally if not globally. These acquirers include RBS, Barclays, First Data, Chase Paymentech, HSBC, and ElavonNova. There may be others also pursuing a similar strategy, but the point is that it is a small list compared to the hundreds of acquirers around the world who compete on a domestic basis.
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Visa expands reload network to ATMs
Visa Inc is to expand and enhance its prepaid reload network, Visa ReadyLink, by enabling consumers to load funds onto Visa reloadable prepaid cards at participating ATMs that accept envelope-free deposits in the US.The announcement marks the expansion of Visas prepaid reloading network outside the merchant sector, where 7,000 merchants have already implemented Visa ReadyLink since its launch in 2006.
Brand new future for Europe
The 9th annual Affinity & Co-Branding Conference held by MasterCard Europe covered the numerous opportunities and challenges, both technological and merchant-related, currently facing the industry, as well as examples of successful co-branded propositions.
The future of prepaid
In this months guest article, Paul Bartholomew-Keen, business leader of prepaid Europe at MasterCard, outlines how growth estimates for prepaid are shaping up amid the current turbulent economic backdrop and looks at the European markets where prepaid promises the most potential.Time certainly does fly, as we already find ourselves well into the fourth quarter of 2008 .
Amex looks for $1.8 billion savings
American Express is taking tough action on costs, cutting 10 percent of its workforce, as its three-party payments model looks increasingly shaky in the midst of the ongoing turmoil in credit markets. American Express is to cut 7,000 jobs, reduce its investment in technology and alter its cardholder pricing and rewards policy in a bid to save $1.8 billion in the next financial year.
US consumers want tighter regulation
As the US economic downturn bites, more and more consumers are paying attention to the way the credit card industry is regulated Beset by a host of economic woes, US issuers must now add the looming threat of more regulation to their list of worries.