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A Quarter of U.S. Businesses Saw a Decline of Over 50% in April Debit/Credit Card Volume Compared to February, TSG Data Finds

Wednesday, May 27, 2020 — 12:18:37 (EDT)

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to alter the landscape for businesses and cardholders across the country, as well as the payment providers that serve them, according to data released today by the largest global analytics and consulting firm focused on the payments acceptance industry, The Strawhecker Group (TSG).

Leveraging TSG’s proprietary Acquiring Industry Metrics (AIM) analytics platform, the firm plotted over one million credit and debit card-accepting merchants in the U.S. and compared their card volume from April to February in order to understand the influence of COVID-19 on their performance. TSG found that 25 percent of all merchants experienced a drop of over 56 percent in April card volume as compared to February.

“When viewed in totality, the drop of card volume is staggering”, said Mike Strawhecker, President of TSG. “But it gets even more informative as you dissect the data by industry and geography. For example, half of the retail merchants in California lost at least 51% of their card volume when comparing April to February. For comparison, half of the retailers in New York lost at least 69% of their card volume. Personal Services and Dine-in Restaurants fared even worse in both states.”

The median decreases, meaning half of the card-accepting merchants in the U.S. fell below this number and half were above this number, in debit/credit card volume for all merchants in select states were as follows:

U.S.: -19% Texas: -41% Florida: -49% New York: -64% Ohio: -41% Georgia: -38%

Additionally, TSG’s market intelligence team took a deep dive into the economic impact of the pandemic on the ten largest states in the U.S.

“When you overlay spend metrics with economic data such as the percent of payroll that received a PPP loan in each state, it may provide insight as to what states and which industries may ‘snapback’ faster than others”, added Strawhecker.

Using the aforementioned spend data as well as a selection of economic data such as PPP receipt percentage relative to payroll, open status, and number of confirmed COVID-19 cases, among the top 10 largest states, TSG determined Georgia has the quickest “snapback potential” followed by Texas and Ohio.

About the Data

TSG leveraged a combination of primary and secondary research techniques from its Market Intelligence Team to uncover the addressed data points, as available. The highlighted merchant acquiring metrics are sourced from TSG’s proprietary AIM analytics platform comprising over 3.7 million card-accepting merchants, which accounts for nearly half of all card accepting merchants in the U.S. Learn more about AIM.

About TSG

The Strawhecker Group (TSG) is the largest analytics and consulting firm focused on the payments acceptance industry. TSG serves the entire payments ecosystem and has experience in working on large-scale projects for the world’s biggest payment players. The firm has worked with all card networks, nine of the top ten merchant acquirers in the U.S., as well as leading private equity firms and investment banks. For more information please visit www.TheStrawGroup.com.

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Source: Company press release.