Oh, what a difference a decade can make. Just 10 years ago, banks were signing referral and revenue sharing agreements with processors like First Data, Elevon and TSYS making merchant services an afterthought.
Enter 2020 and 2021. The year where an unprecedented global pandemic makes headlines triggering explosive digital payments growth. The revenue and loyalty from merchant acquiring is now in the spotlight leaving banks wondering if they should tie themselves to one processing partner or multiple.
Until now, banks haven’t needed more than one processing partner as the processor managed the merchant relationship end to end. However, this meant that the bank was tied to the processor’s customer experience and branding. Additionally, gateways are coming on strong, enabling digital payments across various processors.
This is driving banks to reimagine payments as part of their core offering. The product will sit alongside all other banking products allowing them to take control of new features, support, operational capabilities, pricing, and the overall customer experience.
To help with this, a big trend in the industry is for banks to explore multi-processor arrangements. Some processors are great with retail whereas others are great for hospitality. Some are stronger with gateway integrations or payment facilitation whereas others have a fantastic point of sale capability. In addition, we continuously see bank mergers and as a result the bank needs to determine the go forward processor plan. The environment is ripe, the technology exists and banks are beginning to capitalize on the opportunity.
XUP offers a customized branded experience for both customers and employees, while empowering banks to operate a multiprocessor environment. Contact us at [email protected] or visit us www.xuppay.com to learn more.