Gareth Ellis

Account Manager at ACI Worldwide

Message Posts: 6 Comments: 1

Bio Gareth Ellis is a Business Solutions Manager at ACI Worldwide. Within this role, Gareth manages a team of consultants on all areas of back office. His experience encompasses both front and back end systems, from a technical and business viewpoint. Gareth has worked at ACI for more than 10 years Career History Prior to ACI, Gareth worked as a freelance technical consultant in the banking industry.

Blogs

Are you losing sleep over interchange fee changes?

29 Jul 2014

If you’re a European merchant acquirer, then I should think you are. In case you've not been following the conversations around the new regulations, here’s what we know already: The EU Commission continues its attack on reducing interchange rates and changing the cards business model across Europe There are plans to introduce new card regulation...

HCE: the decline of TSMs and the rise of NFC?

20 Feb 2014

The news that VISA and MasterCard have decided to announce support of Host Card Emulation (HCE) appears to be one of those items you read sometimes where you suddenly realise that there has just been a quite dramatic shift in the industry. For a number of years, instead of discussing the usual Payment Ecosystem: Banks, Processors, Cards and Acqui...

Mobile payments begin at 40

05 Apr 2013

With the mobile phone hitting 40 this week, it’s amazing to see how far it has come since the first model back in the 70s. With an estimated six billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, we’re seeing more and more handsets replacing many things we take for granted, including money. But for a decade and a half, mobile payments have struggled to make ...

Collaborate to innovate

14 Sep 2009

Reflecting on the three days of the EFMA conference, it seems collaboration has emerged as a key factor in driving further innovation in payments. Let’s take the example of mobile payments which has been at the centre of a number of discussions at the show. It seems the two main players – the mobile network operators (MNOs) and the banks – have rea...

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Gareth is Commenting on

Are you losing sleep over interchange fee changes?

Thank you for your views, I will respond to each of these comments separately. To the first comment, you are correct that the Issuer revenue impact will become more challenging and Issuers will need to find alternative ways in generating income and this could focus on current services that are provided free of charge. To the second comment, the expectation is that interchange rates will be reduced and legally binding commitments from Visa Europe point to that fact. I expect the EU Commission will closely monitor the level fees as part of the Trustees role in ensuring that the income received covering all types of scheme revenue does not exceed the threshold set. There is a danger that merchant pricing becomes commoditised and therefore the business case from alternative providers does become more challenging when compared with card payments. Finally, to Andrei Charniauski, the proposed pricing method that acquirers will need to offer will be interchange + Scheme Fee + Acquirer margin. The acquirer margin will be split out going forward as it typically includes schemes fees and other related costs. Acquirer margins will now be the area that will be in focus as all parties pay the same interchange rates, scheme fees (is a pass through cost) and the margin will be negotiated. As the acquirer margin is negotiated this will be in the spotlight and be compared with other offers.

04 Aug 2014 Reply Read article