28
29
CMSPI – IAC State of the Industry Report
CMSPI – IAC State of the Industry Report
Section 2 Overview The Payments Supply Chain
The Findings • Amongst the providers analyzed, profit margins differed significantly by industry segment, with card networks reporting the highest margins on average • Regulatory intervention can have a significant impact on the level of fragmentation in a given geography • For four out of five large U.S. issuing banks analyzed, interchange fee revenue outstripped rewards expenditure The Numbers • 60% The average operating profit margin of the two largest card networks in 2023 40 • 18% The average proportion of five large U.S. issuers’ revenue that comes from interchange fees 41 • 3.09% The average net profit margin of a general retailer in the U.S. 42 • 74% • The share of U.S. consolidated banking assets owned by 29 issuers with >$100 billion of assets 43
Now that we understand how transactions work, it’s time to dive into the players who make them happen. From card issuers, to digital wallet providers, to acquiring banks, hundreds of companies interact every day to take purchase from authorization to settlement. As a merchant, these interconnections mean that you don’t need to have contracted with an industry partner to be directly affected by them. For instance, an outage with a single issuer could affect millions of customers’ ability to pay. Furthermore, the parties involved in payments are often reliant on effective data transmission from competitors, and widespread merger activity means that industry players can become rivals or partners overnight. In this section, we study three key parties in the payments ecosystem: card issuers, payment networks, and acquiring banks. We focus on the card market given its global prominence (see Section 1), and these three actors given their receipt of each component of the Merchant Service Charge (MSC) paid to accept each payment. We analyze their market shares and distinctive roles in different countries, as well as the financial dynamics that underpin their performance. The Questions • How does the market for card issuance compare between different countries? • How have mergers and acquisitions shaped the market for card payments? • How do the profit margins of different payments industry partners compare to that of merchants? • What are the differences between the card networks available in different countries?
40 CMSPI analysis of public financial statements 41 CMSPI analysis of public financial statements 42 Operating and Net Margins (nyu.edu) 43 FRB: Large Commercial Banks-- March 31, 2024 (federalreserve.gov
Powered by FlippingBook