August 8 2016 • Issue 16:08:01

Maintaining the MLS
hometown advantage

By Dale S. Laszig                                             to work. Thirty years after the original payment app
                                                              came to market, the sky is not falling. MLSs can leverage
L ong before there was an app marketplace, the                their experience and relationships to stay connected with
             grandfather of all apps freed merchants from     customers and ahead of competitors.
             paper-based credit card processing. Designed to
             send and receive payment card data over phone    Following are industry leaders' recommendations on how
lines, the app marked the beginning of electronic trans-      MLSs can retain their hometown advantage in the ever-
actions. Through the years, merchant level salespeople        changing payments sphere.
(MLSs) have helped business owners use electronic pro-        Understand top-level trends
cessing technology in increasingly nuanced and sophisti-
cated ways.                                                   A research report titled Merchant Acquiring's Ecosystem:
                                                              Evolving Beyond Transactions, published by Mercator
Modern cloud-based, mobile POS solutions bear little          Advisory Group in June 2016, examines new and
resemblance to first generation payment terminals. Even a     traditional players and their impact on the U.S. acquiring
smartphone has more computing power than a traditional        landscape. "Merchant acquiring remains a fragmented
countertop terminal, underscoring how profoundly              and overlapping industry," wrote report author Raymond
technology can change in a relatively short period of         Pucci, Associate Director of Research Services at Mercator
time. Emerging technologies combined with regulatory,         Advisory Group. "An influx of recent entrants is adding
compliance, and technology milestones have wreaked            layers to the ecosystem."
havoc on incumbent merchant service providers.
                                                              In a recent interview with The Green Sheet, Pucci cited
Each time technologies have disrupted the merchant            three top-level trends attracting new players to payments:
acquiring landscape, it has caused consternation among        mobile, omnichannel, and ecommerce. "Independent
MLSs, who question how changing business models               software vendors [ISVs] are playing an active role in the
and incoming players will affect their livelihoods and        transformation of online retail," he said. "Value-added
job security. Others would argue that its capacity for        resellers [VARs] are leading the EMV transition, helping
reinvention makes the payments industry a great place         merchants purchase, install and certify a new generation
                                                              of smart card readers."

                                                              Contributed articles inside by:

                                                              John Tucker..............................................................................................38
                                                              Aaron Nasseh..........................................................................................40
                                                              Adam T. Hark...........................................................................................42
                                                              Jeff Fortney..............................................................................................44
                                                              Chris O'Donnell......................................................................................46

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