Transaction Trends

At ETA’s Strategic Leadership Forum, payments’ premiere annual executive gathering, attendees received first-access to the latest industry insights, including a breakdown of payments-centric economic data and the new ETA PayFacs Guidelines.

In partnership with The Strawhecker Group, The Electronic Transactions Association, released its Strategic Leadership Forum (SLF) Special Report on the U.S. Economy, focused on the role of the electronic payments ecosystem. Among findings, the study revealed that the fundamentals of payments and FinTech remain strong despite the typical election-year uncertainty because of economic payments growth drivers including:

• Increased consumer usage
  • Using cards for smaller transactions (e.g. gum at gas stations, as well as larger ticket items, like school tuition)
  • Demographic changes, such as millennials paying with cards or their phone, are much less likely to use checks or cash
  • Electronic payments are making strong inroads into traditional check dominated industries such as government, utilities, and healthcare

• Increased merchant acceptance
  • New merchant types seeing the efficiencies of electronic payments acceptance (e.g. B2B to improve receivables)
  • Emerging acceptance markets, including aggregation models, mPOS, and eCommerce continue to fuel positive growth for the industry

• Organic economic growth (inflation and GDP)
  • Same store sales and inflation also contribute to a consistent growth rate

The ETA/TSG Special Report is a free ETA member benefit. For information on ETA membership contact [email protected] or [email protected].

Also at the Strategic Leadership Forum, ETA released its new Payment Facilitator (PayFacs) Guidelines, offering guidance and best practices to the many new entrants in this burgeoning vertical regarding settlement, registration, funding delays, fraud and security. Authored by The Double Diamond Group on behalf of ETA, these new guidelines will help promote the growth of the Payment Facilitators segment as it brings new technology companies into the payments industry.

Payment Facilitator Guidelines include:

• How-to’s for underwriting submerchant accounts;
• Enhanced underwriting due diligence for submerchants;
• Guidance for risk management of submerchant accounts;
• Risk management protocol for submerchants requiring enhanced due diligence

For questions on the Guidelines, please contact Amy Zirkle, [email protected].