As the payments industry becomes ever more global, the role of the major card schemes have become more important.

For the card schemes themselves it is critical how they differentiate themselves to both cardholders and participating banks (and increasingly non-banks). And for those banks and others it is vital that they have effective interactions with the schemes.

Payment card acquiring is now emerging as a potentially high revenue stream for those players that fully understand the business model.

Retail banks are under increasing pressure from legacy core banking systems and critical challenges posed by an increasingly digital society including continued pressure for operational excellence, increased competition from new entrants, customer disenfranchisement and increased regulatory scrutiny.

Recent regulation on cross-border payments in the Eurozone community eliminates the differences in charges for cross-border and national payments in euro.

As the payments industry becomes ever more competitive, card issuers, card schemes, card acquirers and others are looking to add functionality, to expand their geographic coverage and to differentiate.

Accourt has a wealth of experience in the co-brand and affinity market and an in-depth understanding of how reward and benefit driven card programmes can deliver significant and quantifiable upside in terms of increased revenue streams, greater customer loyalty, and an optimised programme performance.