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meet with salespeople. This a fundamental sea change that has broad implica- lenge to the way things work in pay-
tions for the status quo in merchant services sales. ments. Legislation, regulations, law-
suits, disrupting competition may
Third, when payments are integrated into the central functionality that a busi- result.
ness uses to manage its people, suppliers, inventories, sales and operations,
there isn't a lot of thought or analysis about what it's costing to process pay- Fifth, AI has the power to change
ments. It's really tough to get business owners to focus on making changes to almost everything when employed
this central system to save 50 basis points. properly. That may not benefit the
existing structure of merchant ser-
Fourth, cash discount and dual pricing are one of many initiatives to shift the vices. It may not take long.
cost of payment processing to someone else. Owners of restaurants have em-
braced it whole-heartedly. Other types of businesses may be moving that direc- Here's my bottom line: ISO owners
tion but this cost shifting will inevitably cause an upheaval in the balance of better be looking for other sales chan-
the card brand – bank – payments processor – ISO system. nels and competitive solutions in or-
der to keep selling. AI should be built
Add to that the rampant tip excesses in face-to-face payment applications and into any new sales channels or solu-
you soon have a cardholder revolt. This might precipitate a fundamental chal- tions. As an ISO owner, if you don't
see your future clearly and aren't
ready to pivot and adapt, you better
be thinking about finding an exit and
getting the most value for your port-
Snapshot of Upcoming Events folio while you can.

Allen Kopelman
Nationwide Payment Systems Inc.

What kind of curve balls are we go-
ing to face in the next 12 months? I
wish I had a crystal ball to look into
the future.

The reason payment professionals
April 2 - 4, 2025 are good at dealing with monkey
wrenches getting tossed into the mix.
Mandalay Bay Las Vegas, NV Senator Dick Durbin is trying to get
the CCCA back in front of Congress
https://transactshow.com/ again. This is one of the worst pieces
of legislation that would affect con-
sumers and businesses both in a neg-
ative way,
In fact, while Biden was still in office
– that hearing shows one thing that
congress people have NO CLUE how
the payments industry works. When
I was watching the hearing the ques-
tions being asked were all wrong.
Even after an expert tried to explain
how payments works, the Congress
people were still asking the wrong
questions. It looked more like: let's
April 27 - 30, 2025 have Visa and Mastercard come in,
and let's grandstand so the public can
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, New Orleans feel good that we bring in these com-
panies and slap them around. Both
https://payments.nacha.org/register republicans and democrats do not
understand the business.

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