Payment ship navigates economic storm

This is the month that was for ISOs, merchant level salespeople (MLS), and acquiring banks. Federal regulators seized the assets of Washington Mutual Inc., the nation's largest savings and loan, and sold them to JPMorgan Chase & Co. for $1.9 billion. Citigroup Inc. planned to acquire Wachovia Corp.'s retail franchise and banking operations for $2.16 billion, but Wells Fargo & Co. made a counter offer of $15.1 billion.

On Sept. 29, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished the day down 777.68 points, or 7 percent, making it the largest percentage drop in the history of the stock market. Meanwhile, lawmakers haggled over the $700 billion financial institution recue package. It finally passed both houses of the legislature on Oct. 3 and was signed into law by President Bush.

The news has been ominous - but how will this affect the payments industry?

"The bailout plan was hoping to inject enough capital into the marketplace. The problem at the other end is that it's tightening up the credit because everyone is hoarding their cash. It's not a mortgage issue at all." The rescue package is designed in part to get financial institutions lending again by ridding the market of what is known as toxic mortgage-backed securities - mortgages that exceed 30 percent of a homeowner's gross annual income - that lenders fear could cause borrowers to default.

Acquiring side benefits

As a result, access to loans could be reduced, and this could ultimately prompt a significant interest rate cut by the Fed. However, this could possibly create a benefit to the payments industry.  "I think credit is going to be a lot tougher to get than it used to be, and I think as a result debit card will increase at the same time," said Dee Karawadra, founder, President and Chief executive Officer of Impact PaySystem.

"If and when credit is no longer available then [consumers] will start jumping into the debit card sector," he added. Karawadra believes that merchant cash advance services could benefit from the credit crunch. "Cash advance is readily available, it's a lot easier to access than a loan, plus it's an additional revenue stream for our side."

And the sense of panic seems to be lacking in the payments industry. Adam Elliot, President of ID Insight, Inc., said that U.S. Bancorp is taking a unique approach.  "Everybody's cutting back on credit, but USB is actually doing the opposite. They're out pushing it even harder on home equity and mortgage and credit cards, because they see this big vacuum and they're kind of swooping in to fill it up," he said.

Clicks, cliques, and confidence

Martaus doesn't believe things are going to get as bad as the picture mainstream media paints. "If you're involved in the volume side of things, part of the discount package, you might see a little downturn," he said. "Per location sales are down a little, but ISOs are in the "click" business [number of transactions], so acquirers who keep those click numbers up are going to be ok.

"I'm just getting ready to publish a research project on this, but the typical ISO that I talk to said 'Don't bother with this stuff, I'm too busy closing business.' The ISOs themselves aren't even looking up. When you see the wild fluctuations in the market, ISOs are having swings in their values, but they are less volatile than the market as a whole," Martaus added.

He believes that this is less about money and credit than it is about confidence. "All we are looking for is some decision maker to say 'here's your confidence back'. The problem is we are in an election cycle, and these guys are more worried about re-election than they are about doing the right thing for their constituents and the rest of the country," Martaus said. "The people [on Capitol Hill] just need to start doing their job."

Editor's Note: Yeah, maybe the cartoon on the left is not that far off as politicians can start taking debit card payments (under the guise of the IRS) for the increased taxes we're going to pay over the next century...