In the poignant words of John Lennon, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” Many plans, policies and strategies were made in boardrooms across the industry this past year. What happened on the street while those plans were being formulated? And what’s likely to happen in 2008?
To get answers, Transaction Trends spoke with some of the industry’s leading players. All were keen to talk about what the new year may hold.
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In years past, Independent Sales Organizations (ISO) and merchant level salespeople (MLS) presented themselves as one-stop shops for processing and boasted about a wide list of clients across many industries. Many ISOs, particularly very small shops, still use this as their core business model. Yet, industry observers note that many offices are seeing the advantage of positioning themselves as specialty boutiques by catering to merchants in specific industry segments. These ISOs present themselves as processors that know an industry inside and out and, as a result, anticipate problems and create solutions unique to that industry.As part of ETA’s 2007 Strategic Leadership and Networking Forum, the ETA Technology Committee convened a roundtable of industry leaders to discuss the current and future role of technology in the payments industry. The resulting discussion touched on a wide range of topics and points of view. The following is an edited transcript of the discussion.
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Technology: Getting a Foothold |
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While 2008 may not be a year that goes down as the dawn of many new transaction technologies, it will likely see several recent innovations begin to find acceptance in the marketplace.
“I don’t thing there’s been a plethora of new technologies implemented or introduced,” says Point & Pay Inc. General Manager George Devitt. “We’ve seen slow but greater adoption of technologies introduced in prior years.”
Technologies looking to make inroads in 2008 include contactless smart cards, wireless terminals for sitdown restaurants, PCI and mobile banking using cell phones. All these technologies point toward faster, more secure and consumer-convenient trends. And while the technology for all has existed from a few years in some cases to a decade in others, none has seen significant market penetration in the United States in the past.
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ISO Corner: Looking Ahead to 2008 |
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We sought out industry leaders at various ISOs (independent sales organizations), payment processors and payment research firms across the country and asked them to go out on a limb and provide us with their thoughts on how the world of electronic transactions will look in 2008.
When one considers card statistics alone, the old rock song lyrics come to mind: “the future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades.” According to CardTrak.com, Americans put more than $2.2 trillion on their major credit cards for purchases and cash advances last year, making 2007 the second consecutive year that credit card purchases have topped $2 trillion. CardTrak doesn’t attribute the credit card spending to any specific cause, but notes that the growth of purchases on credit is still outpaced, on a percentage basis, by the growth in spending with debit cards.
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Industry Insider: Data Systems Company Inc. |
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These days companies, not to mention consumers, are doing everything in their power to be on the leading, and sometimes bleeding, edge of technology. But technology isn’t always reliable. Power outages, natural disasters, unreadable cards or terminal malfunctions are just a few of the things that could go wrong.
In addition, with new gadgets constantly hitting the market, it’s easy to forget about some of the more basic products and services that are available and often still very pertinent and useful. Embracing some of those basic items might protect merchants from fraudulent activities and save time, energy and aggravation at the same time.
A perfect example is the imprinters offered by Mt. Pleasant, S.C.-based Data Systems Company Inc. Founded a decade ago, Data Systems provides imprinter products to companies across North America and in about 60 countries around the world.
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