Tag Archives: Payments

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some thoughts on Adyen

Before exploring the competitive concerns that have sent shares cratering nearly 60%, it’s worth reflecting on what it is that got people excited about Adyen in the first place. In a typical online transaction, a shopper’s credit card details are picked up and encrypted by a gateway, then routed to the appropriate merchant acquirer. The […]

[MELI – MercadoLibre] Digging the Moat (Or Is It A Grave?): Part 3

Related posts[MELI – MercadoLibre] Digging the Moat (Or Is It A Grave?): Part 1[MELI – MercadoLibre] Digging the Moat (Or Is It A Grave?): Part 2In 2016, six years and several pro-competition pieces of regulation after the Central Bank of Brazil and antitrust authorities first pried the merchant acquiring market open to new competition, Cielo, […]

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[FISV, GPN, FIS, SQ, Stripe, Adyen] On payment processors, distribution, and technology: Part 4 of 4

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 […]

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[FISV, GPN, FIS, SQ, Stripe, Adyen] On payment processors, distribution, and technology: Part 3 of 4

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 […]

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[FISV, GPN, FIS, SQ, Stripe, Adyen] On payment processors, distribution, and technology: Part 2 of 4

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 […]

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[V – Visa; MA – Mastercard] Beyond the card

Related posts:[V – Visa; MA – Mastercard] Expanding the rails, Part 1[V – Visa; MA – Mastercard] Expanding the rails, Part 2How many companies are still posting consistent double-digit organic revenue growth doing essentially the same thing that they’ve done for the last 60 years? I can only think of two. Visa and Mastercard, as […]

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[V – Visa; MA – Mastercard] Expanding the Rails, Part 2

Related Post: [V – Visa; MA – Mastercard] Expanding the Rails, Part 1 The most enduring companies, as the old bit goes, obsess over timeless universals: “paying for stuff should be easy, fast, and safe”.  Sizing a market helps to scope the problem that a product is meant to attack, but fixating on any given […]

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[SQ – Square; PYPL – PayPal] Comparing Business Models and Strategies

[PYPL – PayPal] From its origins in peer-to-peer transfers, PayPal has evolved into the ubiquitous online payment gateway that it is today.  Consumers use PayPal because it is a secure, reliable, and fast payment method that is widely accepted by merchants; merchants accept PayPal because it eases checkout friction for ~240mn potential customers, converting 90% […]
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