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Profiting from Brand Convergence |
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Walls that traditionally separated the four major card brands—Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover—are coming down, easing merchant acceptance and ISO sales efforts. Now, merchants can manage all cards through one front-end and one back-end process, and ISOs can be a single-source provider for all the merchant’s needs, notes consultant Drew Freeman, an associate at The Strawhecker Group in Omaha, Nebraska.
For ISOs, the benefits go beyond convenience. Until recently, “when ISOs were reselling Discover acceptance, they could make money, but only a little,” notes Donna Embry, senior vice president for business and product development at Payment Alliance International in Louisville, Kentucky. “Now ISOs can share in the residual stream as well as make a fixed commission.” And in most cases they now own the account, whereas before, Discover and American Express owned the merchant relationship.
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