GS Logo
The Green Sheet, Inc

Please Log in

A Thing



Links Related
to this Story:

Forum

Merchant Lease Raises Questions

I read with interest Ed Freedman's recent article, "Asleep at the Wheel" (The Green Sheet, Dec. 13, 2004, issue 04:12:01), on how easy it is to miss business when it's right in front of you during everyday experiences. If we only paid more attention we could be so much more successful. Boy, how true that is!

What pained me to see in his story is that a competitor of his was able to soak a small limousine business owner out of $3,357.60 for the privilege of using a terminal for four years on a lease. This must be some new-fangled terminal that drives the limo, washes it, accepts the payment and thanks the customer since it costs that kind of money. Ed didn't mention if the merchant was happy with the deal. Do you know?

Mike Hammer
Chief Marketing Officer
Heartland Payment Systems Inc.

Call it Midwest values, but did anyone else get a bad feeling in the pit of their stomach when in "Asleep at the Wheel," Ed Freedman basically "praised" the Cardservice International sales rep for selling a merchant a four-year lease at $69.95 per month? Why do we wonder why this industry still can't escape the reputation of ripping off unsuspecting customers? Are we the only industry where a lease costs you more than buying direct? Until we understand that the end doesn't justify the means, we will continue to be open to regulatory interference, customer antipathy, and out right disdain.

Mark Courchane
Wind River Financial

Looking for 2003 Processing Totals

Does anyone know the latest published numbers for the total processing volume for Visa/MasterCard combined? Was it 1.2 trillion for debit and credit in 2003? I plan to use this fact in an advertisement. Thanks, Curtis

Curtis: Refer to Visa's and MasterCard's Web sites for this information at:

Also, in the "2004 Payments Study," the Federal Reserve published data stating that general-purpose credit cards (includes Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover) were used for 15.2 billion purchases with a combined value of $1.4 trillion in 2003. The study is available at www.frbservices.org/Retail/pdf/2004PaymentResearchReport.pdf .

The Green Sheet Inc. recently completed the "Payments Grand Prix," (GSQ, December 2004, Vol. 7, No. 4) which is our annual report on the acquiring market. We mailed this issue on Dec. 27, 2004.

We published numbers for credit and offline debit card transactions (combined) and online debit card transactions for the top acquirers:

  • 2003 credit/offline debit transactions for the top acquirers totaled 34.9 billion and were valued at more than $1.8 trillion.
  • 2004 (estimated) credit/offline debit transactions totaled 45.8 billion and were valued at more than $2 trillion.

For a full discussion of our methodology in reporting these numbers, please refer to this GSQ, which will be available on GS Online in January 2005. Editor

Notice to readers: These are archived articles. Contact names or information may be out of date. We regret any inconvenience.
Back Next Index © 2005, The Green Sheet, Inc.