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November 13, 2016 • Issue 16:11:01
Blazing tech trails for commerce
By Ann Train The ETA has welcomed technology members in various
stages of development and has long supported industry
J ust five years ago, the interconnectivity we collaboration through member councils and hosted events,
now take for granted in everyday commerce including the launch of regional Transact Tech events
was not fully realized, and the requisite tech- showcasing startups in such tech corridors as Atlanta,
nologies were often cumbersome to integrate. Boston, New York and San Francisco. Through the ETA,
Now, numerous fintech startups, encouraged by recent acquisitions have materialized, and partnerships have
successes in the tech community in advancing commerce, blossomed.
continue to step forward, hoping to attract investors, part-
ners and even buyers. Clearly, developer entrepreneurial- "Clover became an ETA member when it had seven
ism is booming. employees and hadn't yet launched, but within a few
months First Data saw the technology and bought the
Wary of the financial perils associated with the dot-com company," Oxman noted. "North American Bancard
collapse at the turn of the 21st century, companies today is a great ISO, and they've been around for a long time.
are more calculating about committing resources to When they saw Apple get into the market and become
upstart fintechs. an ETA member, they launched a new product called
PayAnywhere, which is sold in Apple retail stores."
"Technology comes and goes, so not every solution in
the marketplace today is going to be around five years Learn from early adopters
from now," said Jason Oxman, Chief Executive Officer of
the Electronic Transactions Association. "We know that To better understand how progressive payment companies
technology as a whole is a crucial component of payment are navigating the latest tech boom, The Green Sheet invited
services, and not having a technology solution is telling North American Bancard Holdings LLC and Cayan LLC,
your customer that you don't want to keep them around both ETA member companies, to share their perspectives
for the long term. I think that's the most important lesson on the journey to embrace technology.
out of technology."
Marc Gardner, founder, President and CEO of North
American Bancard believes that being a privately held
company has enabled NAB to act in a nimble and strategic
fashion as it builds out its technology platform in-house.
Contributed articles inside by:
Brandes Elitch.........................................................................................26
John Tucker..............................................................................................38
Oren Levy.................................................................................................40
Jeff Fortney..............................................................................................44
Theodore F. Monroe.............................................................................46
TOC on page 3
Continued on page 34
