Financial Transaction Processing Industry Profile

Companies in this industry provide services such as credit card processing, electronic funds transfer, and check clearing. Major companies include Bread Financial, Fiserv, Heartland Payment Systems, Mastercard, Visa, and Western Union (all based in the US), as well as Cielo (Brazil), Moneris (Canada), and UnionPay International (China).

Worldwide, many large credit card processors operate and maintain processing centers globally. About 45% of all card transactions occur in the Asia/Pacific region; over a quarter of transactions is in US and Canada, and over 20% in Europe, according to The Nilson Report. Transactions are expected to reach $640 billion by 2025 or more than 40% increase from 2020 numbers with Middle East and Africa seeing the biggest percentage growth.

The US financial transaction processing industry includes more than 4,300 establishments (single-location companies and units of multi-location companies) with combined annual revenue of about $78 billion.

COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE

Technology is transforming the financial transaction processing industry and consumers' interactions with money. The use of cash as a payment method is plummeting, although it remains the predominant form of payment for small purchases: Approximately 60% of in-person payments under $10 were made in cash, compared to 20% of in-person transactions for $25 or more, according to the Federal Reserve. By value, the recent growth rate (3.8 percent per year) was slightly higher than the growth rate of the prior period (3.6 percent per year), according to the ...