New Report Examines the Battle for the Payments Market

January 13, 2014 – A new BI Intelligence report examines the full process of credit card transactions and assesses which actors are likely to face competition from new payments startups.  The report finds that credit card companies and processors remain in a strong position. The former are a necessary part of the chain providing the pathways on which the system runs, while the latter do the actual work of processing merchants’ transactions.

Particularly vulnerable, according to the study, are hardware manufactures and merchant service providers (MSPs).  Point-of-sale hardware faces an immediate threat from mobile devices. Mobile devices are inexpensive, user-friendly, do not require consumers to adopt new behaviors, and free up retailer space previously needed for hardware.

Traditional MSPs, focused primarily on logistics, face competition from new payment companies providing mobile registers, consumer-side Smartphone apps and additional merchant services.  That said, the study finds that MSPs are strengthened by existing relationships with merchants and banks, large sales forces and established marketing channels. Large MSPs will move toward acquiring new payments technologies

Click here to access the full report.

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