When credit cards were introduced in Europe, the market was still very fragmented. For the most part, merchant acquiring was a low priority for the banking industry. The focus was on card issuance, and the acquiring business was treated as a utility with a domestic focus to facilitate those card-issuing businesses. In a fairly short time though, Europe has become a very competitive acquiring market. The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) initiative and regulation harmonizing cross-border payments facilitated new market entry and the evolution of new business models. The dust hasn’t settled yet.
A new Mercator Advisory Group research report, Evolution of Merchant Acquiring in Europe, reviews how the European merchant acquiring market has developed to its current state and discusses what acquirers need to do to remain competitive.
This research report contains 36 pages and 21 exhibits.
Companies mentioned in this report include: Advent International and Bain Capital (CartaSi, Concardis), Adyen, BNP Paribas Fortis, B+S Card Service, card complete, CardProcess, First Data and ABN AMRO (EMS), Mastercard, Nets, PayLife Bank, SIX Group, UNICRE, Visa, Worldpay, and Worldline.