Financial Transaction Processing Industry Profile

The US financial transaction processing industry includes about 2,000 companies with combined annual revenue of about $40 billion. Major companies include Alliance Data Systems, Banc of America Merchant Services (a joint venture between Bank of America and First Data), Elavon, Global Payments, Heartland Payment Systems, and Total System Services. The industry is highly concentrated: the top 50 companies account for about 85 percent of industry revenue.

The global transaction processing industry generates revenue of about $250 billion annually. Many large credit card processors operate and maintain processing centers globally. International markets with strong growth in payment services include Europe, Asia Pacific, and South America. Non-US financial transaction processing firms include China UnionPay (China), MasterCard's DataCash (UK), and Moneris Solutions (Canada).

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Demand is driven by consumer spending. The profitability of individual companies depends on efficient operations, as services are sold largely based on cost. Large companies have economies of scale in processing and typically can provide more services; small companies can compete by specializing in industries and providing custom services. The business is capital-intensive: average annual revenue per employee is about $400,000.

PRODUCTS, OPERATIONS & TECHNOLOGY

Processors provide transaction services to banks that issue credit cards and to merchants that accept credit card payments. Merchant products include authorizing, capturing, and settling merchants’ credit and debit card transactions, and handling chargebacks. Chargebacks occur when a consumer disputes a charge and charges it back to the merchant. Processors ...