M&A Activity in Merchant Processing and Acquiring—2021

There were 82 mergers and acquisitions in the merchant processing and acquiring sector of the payment card industry in 2021. Those transactions occurred in 31 countries. The monetary values of only 17 of the 82 deals were made public. Among those 17, the largest involved First American Payment Systems in the U.S. The value of […]

Diners Club Virtual Cards for the Travel Industry

Travel industry payment specialist Mystifly has 3,000 clients in Asia-Pacific (APAC), Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) and the Americas. It will offer customers the ability to use virtual prepaid Diners Club International (DCI) cards when booking with airlines. Acceptance fees on those DCI cards are priced lower than Visa, Mastercard and American Express […]

Nium Cross-Border Payments

Nium handled over $8 billion in payments last year for financial institution, fintech, payment service provider, travel industry and other customers. Through a single application programming interface (API), those customers have access to a complete stack of applications that comprise Nium’s banking-as-a-service platform. Applications are also available on an a la carte basis. Clients use […]

Adyen Adds Android POS Terminals

Omnichannel payment platform provider Adyen handles card and alternative payment method transactions, mostly for large global merchants. Adyen opened for business in Europe in 2006, providing a payment gateway for card-not-present transactions for clients including McDonald’s, eBay and Microsoft. Adyen added in-store point-of-sale terminal processing in Europe in 2014 and the U.S. in 2015 using […]

Visa and Mastercard Worldwide for First Nine Months of 2021

Credit, debit and prepaid cards in circulation worldwide carrying Visa and Mastercard brands generated $12.229 trillion in purchase volume for the first nine months of 2021, up 21.1% versus the first nine months of 2020. Purchase volume on cards issued outside the U.S. accounted for 55.87% of the Visa and Mastercard worldwide total, a decline […]

Payment Card Transactions Projected Worldwide

Visa, Mastercard, UnionPay, American Express, Discover/Diners Club and JCB brand card-present and card-not present transactions initiated by consumer and commercial credit, debit and prepaid cards are projected to reach 800.41 billion in 2026, up 45.2% over 2021, which is a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.7% per year. Not included in that 800.41 billion […]

Protecting Acquirers from Fraudulent Merchants

Giving acquirers and payment facilitators of merchant transactions intelligence to uncover fraudulent merchants hiding in their portfolios is the business of EverC. The company’s MerchantView product crawls the internet continuously to scan and monitor factors that impact a merchant’s exposure to risk. MerchantView finds difficult-to-see connections between properly vetted merchants and any hidden submerchants submitting […]

Investments in Merchant Acquiring/Processing—2021

The tables shown here list 128 investments (seed, venture, corporate, private equity and IPO) in 33 countries in the merchant acquiring and processing sector of the payment card industry in 2021. Those transactions were first identified in 12 tables published monthly over the last year in prior issues of the Nilson Report. Those issues are […]

Domestic-Only Card Issuers — Credit

More than 90 domestic-only general purpose debit and/or credit card brands operate worldwide. There are 30 domestic-only credit card brands and all operate outside the U.S. The 25 largest domestic-only credit issuers are ranked here by purchase volume for goods and services in 2020. The top 25 domestic-only debit card issuers were shown in issue […]

Card Manufacturers—Part 2

Shipments of payment cards in 2020 by manufacturer were published in issue 1209. The table on the next page shows shipments in 2020 by manufacturer of SIM phone cards, transportation/ticketing cards, private label prepaid/gift cards, non-SIM phone cards and nonpayment cards such as those for identification, access control, membership/loyalty, promotions, healthcare, driver’s licenses, etc. To […]