We know you’re not looking for problems. But they are looking for you. Herewith our annual catalog of the ones causing the most headaches.
Each year in the fall, as the grass turns brown and the trees shed their leaves, the editors of Digital Transactions start their deliberations over an equally gray and shadowy subject: what’s cramping the style of payments players these days? What obstacles are they confronting, and how? Which ones are pressing harder than the others, and why?
If adversity breeds strength, as the old saying goes, then payments professionals these days may have plenty of opportunity to develop their strategic and tactical biceps. The industry no sooner recovered from all the ill effects of the pandemic than it found itself enmeshed in a slew of other issues, some old and familiar but some others quite surprisingly fresh.
Herewith our annual catalog of the problems we think are most alarming for payments professionals right now, ranked in order of their impact—or potential impact—on the industry. “Impact,” of course, can be a matter of degree. Some of the matters ranked below, however, may be no less pressing for being still more or less in their larval stage.
So, what do we mean by “pressing”? The term refers to the sense of urgency the issue arouses in those it affects, not so much to the size of the market that must deal with it. Some issues, on the other hand, are pressing for a substantial segment of the industry.
Take our number-one issue this year, merchant interchange. There’s nothing new about this issue. Card-accepting merchants have griped about acceptance costs for decades. It has inspired lawsuits and legislation, as well as a good deal of animosity toward banks and allied entities. Yet never has the issue been hotter than it is now. For that reason alone, it has climbed to the number-one spot in this year’s ranking.