Global Payments processes $1bn in card payments a day in countries all over the world. In a field of rapid innovation, what does chief executive Jeffrey Sloan see as the future of payments?

For the average consumer, Global Payments is probably one of the biggest payments companies they have never heard of. Shoppers may be familiar with the logos branded on their credit cards, but what happens after they give the plastic to the retailer is often a mystery. It is companies such as Global Payments that sit behind the transactions and enable the processing of billions of consumer payments every year.

The company does as its name suggests – global payments – processing more than 6 billion transactions a year and about $1bn a day in countries all around the world. It has grown in recent years through acquisitions, such as the purchase of HSBC Merchant Services – the merchant acquiring division of HSBC – in 2009.

As a processor of so many types of payments, the company has to be able to support whatever payment form retailers and consumers demand, and also anticipate payments trends. When it comes to innovation, Jeffrey Sloan, president and chief executive of Global Payments, says there is a pattern: “Every now and again there is a plateau and then there is a renaissance.” The consumer payments world is now experiencing such an explosion of new ideas and possibilities because of mobile devices, he says. “It is changing how people pay at the point of sale.”

In the UK, for example, the company processes the transactions behind Intuit Pay, a service that allows smaller merchants to accept card payments with a smartphone or tablet. Such innovations have opened up a new market. Previously many small businesses, which often relied on cash or cheques, chose not to accept card payments because it was too costly for them to open a merchant account with their bank and pay the transaction fees for a relatively small volume of payments. Now with solutions such as Intuit Pay, and also iZettle and Square – which also enable the acceptance of payments via a smartphone or tablet – it is much more convenient and cost-effective for small businesses and sole traders to accept electronic payments.

Rethinking payments

Some of the developments currently under way were unimaginable only five years ago, says Mr Sloan. Mobile devices are not just changing how consumers pay, but also how retailers accept payments. The innovation goes beyond developing solutions for new merchant categories, such as sole traders. Larger, more established retailers are also rethinking the shopping experience for their customers.

“Merchants are replacing the cash register with iPads or Android tablets,” says Mr Sloan. And with tablets instead of fixed tills, customers will no longer have to queue to pay. Instead, store assistants can roam around the store with the ability to accept payments with a mobile device, such as a tablet or smartphone. “It makes it easier for consumers to consume and merchants to sell things,” says Mr Sloan.

There are many forms of innovations being introduced by retailers and many experts believe there is no winner-takes-all solution. Instead, a new ecosystem of payments innovations is evolving. An array of mobile, tablet and card solutions is emerging in developed markets. Mr Sloan explains that Global Payments is agnostic about which mobile technology will gain the most traction, whether it is tap-and-go near-field communication payments, QR codes – which can be scanned with a smartphone – or PayPal’s latest in-store solution. “We have to enable all of those. It is an unhappy experience for consumers if a merchant cannot accept them,” says Mr Sloan.

Point-of-sale technology

Part of Mr Sloan’s strategy is to continue developing products and services for merchants to offer at the point of sale. Dynamic currency conversion is one such example, which allows consumers to see how much they are spending in their home currency when they are paying by card in another country. And in Asia, the company has introduced instalment plans at the point of sale, which enable retailers to offer customers the option of paying for the goods over a certain number of months and is a service the merchant would finance.

Aside from investing in innovations, the company has been building its processing platforms. Global Payments has recently invested $40m to expand its capacity from a peak of 500 transactions per second to 2000 concurrent transactions per second around the world. “We now have the capacity to support 10 years of growth,” says Mr Sloan. And the average turnaround time between a card being swiped and the authorisation coming back has been reduced by 20% to 30%, he says.

It is not just the capacity and speed that is a focus for the company, but also security. When asked which is more important, Mr Sloan says: “It is like baking a cake – you need all the ingredients.” 

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