Acquiring Trends and Challenges An Overview of the Global ... · Acquiring Trends and Challenges—An Overview of the Global Acquiring Space, commissioned by HPS and produced by Aite

© 2017 HPS. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this white paper by any means is strictly prohibited.

Acquiring Trends and Challenges—An Overview of the Global Acquiring Space

JUNE 2017

Prepared for:

Acquiring Trends and Challenges—An Overview of the Global Acquiring Space JUNE 2017

© 2017 HPS. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this report by any means is strictly prohibited.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................................................... 3 INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................................. 4

METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................................................................ 4 THE ACQUIRER’S AGENDA FOR CHANGE ........................................................................................................ 5 MERCHANT-DRIVEN TRENDS .......................................................................................................................... 6

THE GLOBALIZATION OF COMMERCE ....................................................................................................... 6 OMNICHANNEL PAYMENT ACCEPTANCE .................................................................................................. 7 “MOBILE FIRST” EXPERIENCE .................................................................................................................... 8

INDUSTRY TRENDS ........................................................................................................................................ 12 COMMODITIZATION ............................................................................................................................... 12 CHANGING RISK ...................................................................................................................................... 13

HPS OFFER FOR ACQUIRING BUSINESS: ACQUIRER OFFER AND RETAILER OFFER ....................................... 16 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................................................................ 18 COMPANY INFORMATION ............................................................................................................................ 19

ABOUT AITE GROUP ................................................................................................................................ 19 ABOUT HPS ............................................................................................................................................. 19 AUTHOR INFORMATION ......................................................................................................................... 19 CONTACT ................................................................................................................................................. 19

LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: THE ACQUIRER’S AGENDA FOR CHANGE ....................................................................................... 5 FIGURE 2: DOMESTIC AND CROSS-BORDER E-COMMERCE BY REGION, 2014 TO 2020 ................................. 6 FIGURE 3: OMNICHANNEL PAYMENT ACCEPTANCE ....................................................................................... 7 FIGURE 4: MERCHANT AND CONSUMER VISION OF OMNICHANNEL COMMERCE ........................................ 8 FIGURE 5: THE EVOLUTION OF THE POS PAYMENT TERMINAL .................................................................... 10 FIGURE 6: MARGIN EROSION IN U.S. ACQUIRING ........................................................................................ 13 FIGURE 7: MERCHANT ONBOARDING AND MONITORING ........................................................................... 15 FIGURE 8: THE HPS POWERCARD PLATFORM .............................................................................................. 16



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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Acquiring Trends and Challenges—An Overview of the Global Acquiring Space, commissioned by HPS and produced by Aite Group, outlines the key trends and issues that acquirers face and includes recommendations for how to navigate the space successfully.

Key takeaways from the study include the following:

x The global merchant acquiring market has changed fundamentally as a result of the digitalization of commerce and the demand for new payment solutions for both the offline and online environments. Merchants want their acquirers to help them increase sales, contain costs in an increasingly complex environment, and provide best-in-class solutions for payment-related activity, such as fraud management, omnicommerce, and data analytics.

x The growth of cross-border commerce offers a huge opportunity for online merchants. By 2020, 30% of all consumer purchases will be made cross-border, reaching US$1 trillion in value.1 Merchants are looking for global solutions that allow their consumer clients to pay conveniently and securely through any channel, using their preferred method of payment, and in their own currency.

x Commoditization of the acquiring market and changing risk requirements are the main industry challenges that acquirers have to navigate. Margin compression drives acquirers to develop new products to differentiate their offerings and enter new, often higher-risk markets. This requires significant investment, but product development budgets are increasingly committed to government and card-brand compliance. This is a reality that acquirers find increasingly challenging.

x The traditional point-of-sale (POS) payment terminal is expected to be increasingly replaced by smart-device-based mobile solutions. Merchants want to be able to serve, sell, and take payments anywhere in the store. Modern mobile point-of-sale (MPOS) solutions help merchants integrate payments with the shopping experience, rather than forcing customers through the traditional checkout queue. Such mobile solutions transform the POS into a point of interaction.

x Investment in new risk management solutions is high on the agenda for many acquirers, which provides a fast-growing opportunity for technology vendors. The demand for new technology solutions is expected to rise strongly over the coming years. Aite Group estimates that the total market opportunity for merchant acquiring risk management solutions will be worth more than US$660 million by 2020.

1. “Global Cross Border B2C e-Commerce Market 2020: Report Highlights & Methodology Sharing,”

Aliresearch, 2016, accessed June 20, 2017, http://unctad.org/meetings/en/Presentation/dtl_eweek2016_AlibabaResearch_en.pdf.



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INTRODUCTION The global merchant acquiring market has changed fundamentally as a result of the digitalization of commerce and the demand for new payment solutions for both the offline and online environments. Merchants are looking for global solutions that allow their consumer clients to pay conveniently and securely through any channel, using their preferred method of payment, and in their own currency. New players have entered the value chain, opening up card acceptance for micro merchants through MPOS and online merchant aggregation services.

While the global e-commerce market is still growing rapidly, profit margins in lower-risk segments are under pressure, encouraging acquirers to look for growth opportunities in new markets and merchant segments. With the growth of e-commerce, card-not-present fraud is also on the rise. To protect customers and stakeholders, regulators and card networks mandate and evolve rules and regulations that have to be implemented by card acquirers and their agents to avoid hefty fines.

All these vectors have a significant impact on the payments industry. This white paper outlines the key trends and issues that acquirers face, and includes recommendations for navigating the space successfully.

METHODOLOGY This white paper was developed by Aite Group and commissioned by HPS. It is based on market intelligence and insights developed by Aite Group from previous research as well as available public sources.2

For the purpose of this report, unless indicated otherwise, “acquirer” means either a financial institution formally licensed by the card networks to process payments (processor) or a party such as a payment service provider (PSP) performing acquiring activities on behalf of such licensee.

2. See, for instance, Aite Group’s recent reports Best Practices in Merchant Onboarding and Monitoring,

February 2017, and Payment Service Providers: An Exploration of the Space and the Players, June 2016.

http://www.aitegroup.com/report/balancing-risk-and-return-best-practices-merchant-onboarding-and-monitoring

http://aitegroup.com/report/payment-service-providers-exploration-space-and-players



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THE ACQUIRER ’S AGENDA FOR CHANGE When the wind of change blows, some people build walls, others build windmills. (Chinese proverb)

The winds of change in the payments world are blowing from two directions, originating from changing client demand and industry developments. Trends in each create both tailwinds and headwinds for acquirers to deal with (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The Acquirer’s Agenda for Change

Source: Aite Group

Business trends directly driven by clients (merchants and merchant aggregators) are given on the left side of this picture. Merchants require their payment provider(s) to support their cross-border business, to manage payment over all channels, and to provide superior experiences for both their consumer clients and for their own needs.

Industry trends are on the right side of Figure 1. Increasing competition, from peers and from new entrants, has led to strong margin pressure, with many services becoming commodities—with price as the only distinguishing factor. This commoditization makes acquirers look for new markets and merchant segments, increasing profitability but also raising the risk profile of their merchant portfolio. Acquirers will have to manage due diligence and monitor merchant operations within an ever-more-demanding regulatory framework, a reality that acquirers find increasingly challenging.

The acquirer’s change agenda should find a balance between market expansion, and risk management and compliance. Acquirers can review their value chain and find strategic partners for offerings that are not considered core business. Investment in the right technology will be critical, as the increasing complexity of the business can no longer be sustained through legacy infrastructure and manual intervention. The trends and challenges will be discussed in more detail in the following sections.

Market expansion

Risk management

and compliance

Technology investments

Delivery and service

Strategic partnering

Acquirer’s agenda for change

•Local and international payment methods

•Multicurrency

Globalization of commerce

•Online, in-store, and in-app

•Card, contactless, and mobile

Omnichannel payment

acceptance

•Digital wallets •Evolution of POS

into MPOS“Mobile first”

experience

Merchant-driven trends

•Standardization of offerings

•Decreasing margins•Competition from

non-banks Commoditization

•Increasing CNP fraud

•Merchant underwriting risk management

•Regulation and compliance

Changing risk

Industry trends



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MERCHANT-DRIVEN TRENDS Merchants are looking for acquirers not just to process payments. They want their acquirer to help them increase sales, contain cost in an increasingly complex environment, and provide best-in-class solutions, e.g., for fraud management and data analytics. An acquirer should, therefore, position itself as a merchant services provider rather than a payments company. So, which customer trends and challenges should such a provider be able to navigate?

THE GLOBALIZATION OF COMMERCE Merchants are increasingly selling cross-border, either directly or over global platforms such as Amazon and Alibaba. By 2020, 30% of all purchases will be cross-border, reaching US$1 trillion in value (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Domestic and Cross-Border E-Commerce by Region, 2014 to 2020

Source: EIU, ISI, World Bank, Accenture analysis

China is the largest market for cross-border commerce, accounting for about 25% of total value. The growth of cross-border commerce (estimated at more than US$750 billion between 2014 and 2020, an annual growth rate of 27%) offers a huge opportunity for online merchants. To



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monetize that, online merchants need to convince online shoppers in foreign countries to trust their brand for product quality, price, delivery, and service. When the consumer has made that choice, payment has to be as easy and convenient as possible. But in some of the largest markets in the world, international credit cards are not the preferred payment method. This means that merchants require support of local payment methods, such as Alipay, WeChat payment, and Union Pay in China; SEPA bank transfers and direct debits in Germany; and Yandex, Qiwi, and WebMoney wallets in Russia. Also, they need to offer the choice to pay in local currency.

Global acquirers servicing international e-commerce merchants, therefore, support many—in some cases more than a hundred—international and local payment methods through their payment gateways. These gateways can be provided in-house as part of a “one-stop shop” acquiring offering or delivered by a third-party PSP. Acquirers and their PSPs provide payment acceptance through any channel that the merchant requires, including physical-world payments at the point of sale. This allows merchants to deploy omnichannel acceptance of payments and to better meet their customer’s needs for anytime, anywhere commerce (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Omnichannel Payment Acceptance

Source: Aite Group

OMNICHANNEL PAYMENT ACC EPTANCE The traditional borders between online and offline commerce are blurring. Many shoppers use retail stores as a kind of showroom to see and touch a product before buying it online (showrooming) or, inversely, research products online before buying them in store (webrooming). In the U.S., digital interactions were expected to influence 64 cents of every dollar spent in retail stores, or US$2.2 trillion, by the end of 2015.3

3. “Navigating the New Digital Divide: Capitalizing on Digital Influence in Retail ,” Deloitte, 2015, accessed

June 20, 2017, https://www2.deloitte.com/us/en/pages/consumer-business/articles/navigating-the-new-digital-divide-retail.html?id=us:2el:3pr:diginf15:awa:retail:051515.

Online payment

In-app payment

In-store payment Mobile web Mobile wallet

Payment acceptance

Application program interface



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Consumers expect to be able to transact with their favorite brand over any channel, be that the merchant’s website, mobile app, or physical store. Acquirers can help merchants manage this transition to omnicommerce, enabling them to do the following:

x Accept payments through a variety of card and non-card payment methods and channels, including EMV contact and contactless card payments, digital wallets, and mobile payments

x Manage sales cross-channel, e.g., allow consumers to buy online and pick up the item in store, or choose from online inventory in the store

x Obtain an integrated view on payments across all sales channels

Omnichannel is the latest mantra in retail, but the merchants’ and consumers’ views are very different (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Merchant and Consumer Vision of Omnichannel Commerce

Source: Aite Group

While merchants strive to serve their customers through any touch point, consumers are less and less loyal to the merchant’s brand. They just want to get the best deal from any merchant they choose to include in their list of trusted providers. This is a real challenge for many merchants. It requires them to focus even more on customer experience and put the customer in the center of every part of the sales process—including payments.

“MOB ILE F IRST ” EXPER IENCE The ultimate raison d’être of an acquirer is to help its merchant clients convert consumer visits into sales. It means making the payment experience as easy as possible, removing friction in the process, and enabling consumers to pay in the way they want and whenever they want. The increasing consumer use of the mobile device for online commerce has put even more attention on frictionless payments. When consumers are shopping on the move, with limited time and on a smaller screen, payment has to be a super convenient “click and pay” experience to avoid frustration and cart abandonment. The best payment experience is no experience.

Retailer

In-store

Online

MOTO

Mobile

The Merchant’s Vision of Omnichannel“We can serve the customer through any touch point”

Customer

Merchant B

(In-store)

Merchant C

(Online)

Merchant D

(MOTO)

Merchant A

(Mobile)

The Customer’s Vision of Omnichannel“I can buy whatever from whomever whenever I want”



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D I G I T A L W A L L E T S — I N C R E A S I N G C O N V E R S I O N Digital wallets have become a popular method to streamline the payment experience. Such wallets provide a secure and convenient way to pay merchants via online and mobile channels, using payment data and shipping-address details stored in the wallet. The reduced friction in the checkout process leads to lower cart abandonment and better conversion rates for merchants, helping them to increase sales. Acquirers need to support the increasing variety of digital wallets in the market by integrating popular wallets into the merchant offering. Accepting payment via a new wallet should not be more difficult for a merchant than ticking a box in the acquirer’s menu of payment options.4

T H E E V O L U T I O N O F T H E P O S T E R M I N A L In physical commerce, the checkout process is being upgraded as well. Merchants want to be able to serve, sell, and take payments anywhere in the store. Modern MPOS solutions help merchants integrate payments with the shopping experience, rather than forcing customers through the traditional checkout queue. Such mobile solutions become popular with merchants, transforming the POS into a point of interaction. Verifone predicts that by 2019, 46% of all POS terminals will be mobile.5

The traditional POS payment terminal is expected to be increasingly replaced by smart-device-based solutions (Figure 5).

4. See Aite Group’s report Digital Wallets: Provider Strategies to Meet Customer Requirements,

September 2016.

5. “The Real Cost of Not Offering Mobile POS,” Verifone white paper, 2017, accessed May 10, 2017, http://lp.verifone.com/uk/mobile-pos.

http://aitegroup.com/report/digital-wallets-provider-strategies-meet-customer-requirements



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Figure 5: The Evolution of the POS Payment Terminal

Source: Aite Group

MPOS solutions still require a separate EMV card reader/PIN-entry device connected to the merchant’s tablet or phone (e.g., solutions provided by Square or iZettle). Smart POS terminals look like modern tablets, but their (proprietary) security designs allow the terminals to be fully Payment Card Industry (PCI) certified, including the option to enter the PIN directly on the terminal’s touch screen. Smart POS solutions also offer an open-source app marketplace that allows merchants to add new applications.

The final step in this evolution is to enable direct mobile-to-mobile communication between the consumer and the merchant, removing the need for a separate payment device. One European example is MobilePay in Denmark, a payment app that was launched for person-to-person payments but has been built out into a person-to-merchant application as well. More than 43,000 shops (both physical and online) accept payments via MobilePay, and all payments are made online. For large retailers, MobilePay has created a special countertop box that makes the connection from the consumer’s device to the merchant via NFC, BLE, or QR code.6 MobilePay is very popular in Denmark, and similar schemes are being rolled out in other Scandinavian markets as well.

6. “The Story of MobilePay—and a Few facts,” MobilePay, accessed May 28, 2017,

https://mobilepay.dk/da-dk/Pages/The-Story-in-English.aspx.

Traditional terminals• Dedicated to

payment only• Disconnected from

sales process

MPOS • Takes payments

anywhere in the store • Manages queues

during peak times • Integrates payments

with the sales experience

• Enriches service with inventory, price and information look-up, loyalty, etc.

Smart POS• “MPOS on steroids”• Open APIs for third-

party developers to integrate with POS

• Supplies app ecosystem for inventory management, CRM, loyalty, and analytics

OmniPOS• Online payments

accepted at the POS through mobile app

• Payments can run over any rails, including cards, direct debit, and credit transfer

• Mobile used as remote control for omnichannelcommerce



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In Asia, the use of QR codes is very popular to accept payments made via digital wallets in store. For instance, Alipay and WeChat Pay (China) and Paytm (India) use this interface to allow their users to make physical-world payments.

Innovative acquirers and PSPs that develop new solutions to support the “mobile first” trend obtain a competitive advantage in the increasingly competitive acquiring market. Examples are Danske Bank, the bank that launched MobilePay in Denmark in 2013, and Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which launched the first smart POS terminal in 2015.



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INDUSTRY TRENDS Merchant acquiring is becoming more competitive and dynamic, meeting fast-changing customer requirements. The increasing commoditization of merchant processing and margin compression is encouraging acquirers to look for growth opportunities in new markets and merchant segments, raising the risk profile of the merchant portfolio and, therefore, sharpening due diligence requirements. At the same time, acquirers will have to manage due diligence and monitor merchant operations within an ever-more-demanding regulatory framework.

Meeting changing customer needs and managing risk requires significant investment in new products, but product development budgets are increasingly committed to government and card-brand compliance.7 This is a reality that acquirers find increasingly challenging.

COMMODITIZATION Market consolidation has created large, diversified players that compete intensely for the same lucrative segments of the business. Acquirers face stiff competition from traditional merchant acquiring competitors as well as from a variety of technology- and product-savvy payment facilitators, such as Square, PayPal, and Adyen. Also, the acquiring business model is increasingly moving toward the “interchange plus” model, in which the acquirer provides transparency on the interchange fees paid to the card issuer. This means that acquirers can no longer benefit from decreases in interchange fees (mandated by regulators) but have to pass the cost savings on to merchants.

As a result, the merchant acquiring business has reached a point of maturity, commoditization, and margin compression. The demarcating lines among acquirers, processors, and technology providers are fading, with providers taking multiple roles in the value chain. For instance, many PSPs or payment facilitators fulfill the role of acquirer, using a sponsor bank to become the merchant of record or becoming members of the card networks themselves. The resulting pressure on profit margins will be felt, in particular, in the small and midsize merchant segments (Figure 6).

7. See Aite Group’s report Balancing Risk and Return: Best Practices in Merchant Onboarding and

Monitoring, February 2017.





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Figure 6: Margin Erosion in U.S. Acquiring

Source: McKinsey

Service offerings are increasingly commoditized and highly competitive, leading to a “race to the bottom” on pricing and industry consolidation. With larger acquirers offering traditional services at increasingly lower prices, leveraging their economy-of-scale advantage, and new entrants offering unique and differentiated solutions, small and midsize traditional acquirers feel squeezed on all sides. As a result, many acquirers are involved in business-transformation efforts, seeking to find ways to stand out by developing unique offerings that can demand price premiums and break the commoditization and price-cutting cycle. They seek to become providers of a multitude of services that add value to merchants by leveraging data and the point of interaction to enhance consumer experiences, increase sales, enhance loyalty, and provide additional opportunities to merchants. To do so, they need to transform their technology offerings to support new product sets and transform their distribution channels from payment-centric sales channels to consultative, product-centric, multichannel capabilities.

CHANGING RISK As the payments space continues to grow in size and complexity, merchant acquirers and their partners face new challenges to manage risk. On a global level, fraud continues to migrate from the physical world to the fast-growing card-not-present environment. The acquiring value chain has become more complex with the growth of payment facilitators, marketplaces, and other agents that act as “master merchant” or merchant of record on behalf of multiple submerchants.



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Such indirect relationships make it more difficult for acquirers to assess the aggregated risk in their portfolio. As the card networks hold the acquirer responsible for merchant and agent oversight, and any losses caused by either entity, merchant risk management policies have to be continually updated and improved to prevent financial losses and reputational damage.

R E G U L A T I O N A N D C O M P L I A N C E Merchant acquiring as a financial service is a heavily regulated business. Governments and card networks issue detailed rules that have to be implemented and continually updated by acquirers. These rules pay increasing attention to anti-money laundering, preventing terrorist financing, combatting fraud, and protecting consumer rights.

On a global level, compliance with the card network rules and regulations has the most impact on acquirers’ investment budgets. In Europe, a number of current or pending regulations are top-of-mind for EU acquirers and processors, including the following:

x The revised payment services directive (PSD2), a law that is expected to have “disruptive” impact on the payments industry8

x The fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD V), particularly related to the beneficial ownership transparency rules for companies and trusts

x New data protection rules laid down in Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation)

M E R C H A N T O N B O A R D I N G A N D M O N I T O R I N G The fast growth of the market and increasing regulation puts pressure on acquirers to become ever-more efficient and prudent in their merchant onboarding and monitoring processes (Figure 7). The increasingly complex onboarding process for traditional acquirers enhances the value proposition for payment facilitators acting as merchant of record, since they can dramatically condense the due diligence and onboarding timelines for merchants from days to hours.

8. See Aite Group’s report The Changing Rules of the European Payments Game, October 2016.

http://aitegroup.com/report/changing-rules-european-payments-game



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Figure 7: Merchant Onboarding and Monitoring

Source: Aite Group

Investment in new risk management solutions is high on the agenda for many acquirers, which provides a fast-growing opportunity for technology vendors.

The demand for new technology solutions is expected to rise strongly over the coming years. Aite Group estimates that the total market opportunity for merchant acquiring risk management solutions will be worth more than US$660 million by 2020.

Onboarding process

Monitoring process



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HPS OFFER FOR ACQUIRING BUSINESS: ACQUIRER OFFER AND RETAILER OFFER In the new digital and globalized world, cross-border acquirers and retailers have to process digital and in-person payments from across the globe. This has led to an unprecedented number of challenges, many of which are happening in parallel.

Acquirers are now having to provide greater flexibility and transparency on pricing, while connecting to multiple new and existing local and international schemes. Acquirers are also under pressure to optimize processing costs and scheme fees and commission. At the same time, retailers are increasingly trying to extract value from transaction data to enhance customer insight and to optimize interchange costs from the “best” acquirer while remaining PCI-compliant and reducing operational costs.

HPS’ PowerCARD is a flexible and comprehensive merchant management platform that enables acquirers and retailers to overcome all of these challenges while increasing operational efficiency and reducing costs (Figure 8).

Figure 8: The HPS PowerCARD platform

Source: HPS

Through one unique piece of software, PowerCARD can be packaged to support specific needs of acquirers on the one hand or specific needs of retailers on the other. While the scope slightly

Acceptance

Pre-acquiring

Acquiring

Transactionsfiles

Items (Only with retailers)

Outgoing files

Merchants

Schemes

Aggregated transactions files

AcquirerOffer

RetailerOffer

Authorizations

Authorizations

1100….0101

1100….0101

Authorizations1100….0101



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differs for individual needs, as shown on the diagram, the key product capabilities provided by the platform remain the same:

x PowerCARD supports any kind of merchant from small to large, with or without complex hierarchy.

x PowerCARD manages the merchant contract by detailing all products and services sold/provided to the merchants.

x PowerCARD is a multichannel solution with no restriction on the type of transactions processed, allowing acceptance of all types of payment—online, in person, on the go, and over the phone.

x Merchant accounts and transactions are stored and managed in PowerCARD, which does the following:

x Gives acquirers complete control of the merchant billing, clearing, and settlement processes

x Gives retailers the opportunity to set up their own marketplace and allows them to bill, clear, and settle with submerchants

x Automatically settles with the merchant transactions that are submitted to PowerCARD, according to the flexible settlement options that are provided

x Merchant service charges and transaction fees are managed through a sophisticated and powerful engine that gives flexibility to propose attractive and transparent pricing options to merchants.

x PowerCARD multicurrency, multi-institution, and multilanguage capabilities allow clients to manage cross-border acquiring operations. PowerCARD’s ability to manage merchant portfolios in different countries and for different acceptance institutions meets the needs of global and multinational merchants.



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CONCLUSION x The merchant acquiring business has reached a point of maturity, commoditization,

and margin compression. The demarcating lines among acquirers, processors, and technology providers are fading, with providers taking multiple roles in the value chain. The resulting pressure on profit margins will be felt, in particular, in the small and midsize merchant segments.

x The acquirer’s change agenda should find a balance between market expansion on the one hand and risk management and compliance on the other hand. Acquirers should review their value chain and find strategic partners for parts that are not considered core business. Investment in the right technology will be critical, as the increasing complexity of the business can no longer be sustained through legacy infrastructure and manual intervention.

x Cross-border commerce is growing more than US$750 billion between 2014 and 2020 and offers a huge opportunity for online merchants. To facilitate payment, merchants want to give their foreign customers the option to pay by their trusted local payment methods and in local currency. This means global acquirers need to support a multitude of different payment methods and currencies.

x Acquirers and their PSPs should provide payment acceptance through any channel that the merchant requires, including physical-world acceptance of payments at the POS. This allows merchants to deploy omnichannel acceptance of payments.

x Innovative acquirers and PSPs that develop new solutions to support the “mobile first” trend in retail, including digital wallet acceptance and MPOS solutions, obtain a competitive advantage in the increasingly competitive acquiring market.



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COMPANY INFORMATION

ABOUT AITE GROUP Aite Group is a global research and advisory firm delivering comprehensive, actionable advice on business, technology, and regulatory issues and their impact on the financial services industry. With expertise in banking, payments, insurance, wealth management, and the capital markets, we guide financial institutions, technology providers, and consulting firms worldwide. We partner with our clients, revealing their blind spots and delivering insights to make their businesses smarter and stronger. Visit us on the web and connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

ABOUT HPS HPS is a leading payment software company providing electronic payment solutions for financial institutions, processors, and national switches all around the world. Through its suite of solutions, PowerCARD, used by more than 350 issuers, acquirers, and national switches, processes any card type (credit, debit, prepaid, loyalty, corporate, and fuel) via any channel (ATM, POS, internet, and mobile) for any kind of merchant.

HPS operates in over 85 countries in four continents and counts among its clients several top 100 financial institutions worldwide.

For more information please visit www.hps-worldwide.com.

AUTHOR INFORMATION Ron van Wezel +31.6.3629.6515 [email protected]

CONTACT For more information on research and consulting services, please contact:

Aite Group Sales +1.617.338.6050 [email protected]

For all press and conference inquiries, please contact:

Aite Group PR +1.617.398.5048 [email protected]

For all other inquiries, please contact:

[email protected]

http://aitegroup.com/

https://twitter.com/AiteGroup

https://www.linkedin.com/company/aite-group

mailto:[email protected]




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Acquiring Trends and Challenges An Overview of the Global ... · Acquiring Trends and Challenges—An Overview of the Global Acquiring Space, commissioned by HPS and produced by Aite