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As 2016 beckons, multiple challenges and opportunities await the payments industry and the Electronic Transactions Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group that represents the merchant-acquiring and -processing industry.
Incoming ETA board president Greg Cohen says the association, and the payments industry it represents, are in the midst of a transformation that involves technology companies, alternative lending, and a greater awareness of new payment methods. His term starts Jan. 1.
“We as an organization have really made a conscious effort to expand outside of just independent sales organizations and acquiring banks and processors,” Cohen tells Digital Transactions News. “We cannot be just about banks and processors and ISOs and expect to transition the association to match the changing payments landscape.”
“As technology, software, and payments come together, it’s getting more of these entities engaged in the ETA because they now have a greater piece of the ecosystem,” Cohen says. While most ETA board members come from acquirers, processors, and vendors, the Presidential Advisory Council, whose members hold non-voting seats on the ETA board, includes companies such as Apple Inc., CAN Capital Inc., and Merchant Customer Exchange LLC, the organization behind the retailer-controlled CurrentC mobile wallet now undergoing a test in Columbus, Ohio.
Apple and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., backers of Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, respectively, joined the ETA in 2014.
2016 also will be a year for continuing the ETA’s advocacy efforts among legislators and regulators, Cohen says. He pointed to the PCI Security Standards Council’s recent decision to postpone a Web-browser security mandate as evidence of the ETA’s advocacy.
Cohen expects the association to continue its outreach efforts, which have included providing content for regional acquiring conferences.
The ETA’s transformation is emblematic of greater changes happening in payments that may challenge typical ways of doing business.
“We’re in an era of consolidation,” Cohen says. “It’s an era where a lot of traditional payment companies and acquirers will have to change their models to adapt.” New entrants that lack a traditional payments-industry background will field payments products and services, he says.
The most recent example of consolidation is Global Payments Inc.’s $4.3 billion acquisition of Heartland Payment Systems Inc.
Then there are the macro-level factors—among them the 2016 general election for president and all 435 House of Representatives seats, rising interest rates, and potential regulation—affecting all businesses. “It will be interesting to navigate,” Cohen says.
As the definition of a payments processor or acquirer expands, so too will the ETA’s activities, Cohen says, “in order to cover the needs of a growing constituency.”
That will mean changes to the association’s events, Cohen says. Without offering specifics, he says there may be additional events or changes to existing ones. This year, the ETA introduced Transact Tech, a one-day conference with a focus on technology, to join its existing Transact and Strategic Leadership Forum events.
“We’re excited for the new year,” Cohen says. “Everyone is really excited to continue on the path we’re going down.”
