Leaf Adds a Merchant Services Provider Referral Marketplace

By Kevin Woodward

n

Tablet-based point-of-sale provider Leaf Holdings Inc. is providing a marketplace to help merchant service providers find merchants. Dubbed Payments Apps, the service provides a free listing with the payment company’s contact information and a description of up to 2,000 characters. Payment companies pay $10 per month per merchant if the merchant finds them via the marketplace.

n

The marketplace fulfills a need for merchants who come to Leaf looking for a payment provider, says Patric Caya, Leaf manager of partner acquisition. “What we saw was in too many cases where someone was going through the Leaf sales process, but didn’t know their credit card processor,” Caya tells Digital Transactions News, “and they would ask for recommendations for processing.”

n

Merchant service providers are vetted to ensure their pricing is transparent, Caya says. “We want to understand who you are as a business owner,” he says.

n

Leaf executives thought why not make helping these merchants a little easier, he says. Now, as a merchant moves through the Leaf sales process, he can be directed to the marketplace—housed on a page on the Leaf Web site—to select which merchant services companies to get quotes from.

n

Merchant service providers that obtain merchants via the Leaf Payment Apps marketplace also receive a bonus banner display on the merchant’s Leaf presenter device. With each swipe of a payment card, the banner appears on the display, reinforcing the company’s brand with a “Processed by…” message, Caya says. That is included in the $10 fee.

n

Currently, seven payment companies—Allegiant Payment Solutions, Apex Merchant Services, BizTwister, Goel Payment Solutions, Moolah LLC, Pivotal Payments and Stripe—participate in the marketplace, according to Leaf’s Web site.

n

Many merchant service providers seek out such referral sales leads, says Adil Moussa, principal at Omaha, Neb.-based Adil Consulting. As a method of acquiring new merchants, referrals, at 37%, is second only to direct sales, at 42%, among payment providers, Moussa says.

n

“This is a great idea to help connect and market to merchants through a vendor that merchants already like and trust,” Moussa says. “Acquirers can have more say in their positioning by having their profiles in front of the merchant.”