IMGCAP(1)]
This article appears in the Aug. 6, 2009, edition of ISO&Agent Weekly.
The concept of a registration program for merchant-level salespeople is not new, but a recent industry survey found most respondents would favor such a scheme.
Initiated this year by the ISO Coalition on LinkedIn.com, a social-networking Web site run by LinkedIn Corp., the survey found that 68% of 126 respondents agreed that registration would help the industry regulate itself. The remainder, 32%, said such a scheme would not help.
The survey also found many respondents favored establishing a new organization to maintain the registry. Thirty-nine percent preferred a new organization, with 29% selecting card brands Visa Inc. and MasterCard Worldwide as overseers.
Visa and MasterCard already separately maintain registered ISO lists, but they do not extend to the ISO sales-agent level.
Some respondents, 18%, selected the Electronic Transactions Association, a Washington, D.C.-based trade group, to oversee registration. Fourteen percent selected "other."
Agent Credentials
A sales-agent registry would enable a merchant to verify certain aspects of the sales agent, though details of what would be included in such a listing have yet to be determined, says Anna Solomon, a leader of the ISO Coalition group on LinkedIn.com.
The survey's genesis was out of the National Association of Payment Professionals, a now-defunct trade group for sales agents, Solomon says. Solomon and several other ISO Coalition organizers served as former board members of the group. They have investigated other ways to provide an outlet for sales agents, and the LinkedIn group is one conduit for that, she says.
The survey also asked which salespeople should register, such as an independent sales agent or someone employed by an ISO who receives benefits. A majority, 68%, favored different levels of registration based on such factors as training and knowledge level or one's status–as an independent contractor or on a payroll.
A criminal background check should be a fundamental element of registration, according to 88% of the survey respondents. And, because multiple responses were
accepted, 74% wanted an industry-knowledge test included.
Uprecedented Questions
Discussion of a registration program is at the concept stage only, Solomon says.
Moving past that stage could be tricky, suggests Paul A. Rianda, who operates his own law firm in Irvine, Calif., that specializes in the acquiring industry.
"There have been different variations of this for the past 10 years," Rianda says. "None have come to fruition."
Part of the reason may be the unprecedented questions that have to be answered.
"My first question is, who will implement it?" Rianda says. "Who will have the authority to do this? How do you legally make people do this."
The goal is to scrub bad agents from the industry, Rianda says.
How is that balanced against maintaining an environment that ensures any complaints are investigated before becoming a black mark against an agent? he asks.
The industry is splintered, and competitive nature does not lend itself to easy agreement, Rianda says.
Regardless of whether a sales-agent registration program is created, the ISO always has the liability to ensure its agents act responsibly, Rianda says.
"An ISO needs to be very diligent on who their agents are," Rianda says.
