In this episode, Bryan Derman welcomes Tim Chiodo from UBS and Chris Kim from Capital Group to discuss what’s happening in the market, consider what investors look for in a payments company, and explore impacts on investing from regulation and innovation.
Payments transactions generate plenty of useful data for merchants. But wrangling that data into informative shape gets challenging, especially when multiple acquirers, gateways, processors, or other service providers are used. Each one has a different approach to reporting and some are (much) better than others. Developing a consolidated view and, as important, reconciling financials from different sources is a time consuming task for staff who need timely data on multiple concerns.
Chargebacks are one of the card system's great consumer benefits. If fraud happens, the merchant doesn't deliver on what was promised, or you're charged six times for something you bought just once, the chargeback mechanism returns your money or restores your credit. What's not to like? Well, if you're a merchant, a lot. While there are plenty of legitimate chargebacks, there are also consumers who take advantage of the system through "friendly fraud," the "I didn't do it" chargeback category abused by all too many.
Interchange galvanizes the attention of regulators around the world like iron filings to a magnet. Everyone in card payments watches their moves closely because of its economic impact on merchants, card networks, issuers, acquirers and, in theory, consumer pricing. European regulators are among the most recent to weigh in.
