Hi everyone,scuttleblurb is now on Substack (link). You don’t need to do anything. scuttleblurb Substack will have the same content as scuttleblurb Classic and I will continue to run both versions of the site. If you prefer to read on Substack, here’s what you should do:cancel your scuttleblurb Classic subscription (link) sign up for the […]
Fiserv (FISV)Even as the largest merchant acquirer and issuer processor in the US, Fiserv is overlooked amid the fintech jubilee. You should read my 4 part post on merchant acquirers for more detail but to recap, a few years ago Fiserv and First Data merged in a $22bn all stock-deal. The combined business now looks […]
If you follow the payments space even casually, you are no doubt aware of the sequence of the mega mergers that have taken place between merchant acquirers and core processors this past year. Source: scuttleblurb and public filingsThe bolded companies in the table above are the surviving merged entities, their market caps and enterprise values […]
Having covered merchant acquirers and card networks, I’m down to the final part of the payment edifice – issuer processors. Issuer processors are to card issuing banks what merchant acquirers are to merchants. They authorize and process transactions on behalf of card issuing banks under long-term agreements and recognize revenue based on a combination of […]
In the payments space, the difference between a distributor and a competitor can be so blurry as to lose functional meaning. Mercury Payment was a significant ISO for legacy acquirers before Vantiv acquired it from Silver Lake. Stripe offers many of the same services as the legacy acquirers to whom it outsources transaction processing. Ditto […]
This is Part 1 of what I expect will be a 3-part series on merchant acquirers and issuer-side payment processors [edit: 4-part series!]. It describes the basic mechanics of the merchant acquisition model and delves into how incumbent players like First Data, Global Payments, and Worldpay got to where they were prior the flurry of […]
