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The new Visa Inc. president of North America faces the challenges of pleasing a variety of stakeholders in a tough payment card market, says Aite Group analyst Adil Moussa. Moussa tells CardLine he expects Bill Sheedy, whom Visa named this week as president of its North American region (CardLine, 9/3), to continue pushing Visa's efforts to expand market share. "As head of strategy for Visa, Sheedy was continually pushing Visa's growth through different methods–pushing issuing, acquiring, and greater merchant acceptance and innovation," Moussa says. "That is what he will continue doing." Expansion will not come easily, given the saturation of the U.S. and Canadian card markets, he says, noting that "people are already carrying four credit cards each." Despite the large number of cards in North American wallets, only 6.9 million of America's 33 million merchants accept Visa, leaving plenty of room to expand acceptance among small merchants, Moussa says. Reaching out to merchants will be an important part of Sheedy's job, the analyst says. Until recently, Visa operated as an association, and Visa USA and Visa Canada had to keep cardholder and merchant demands in mind, but their primary loyalty was to card-issuing members, Moussa notes. Now, recently reorganized as a publicly traded company, Visa expects Sheedy to balance the company's response to the competing demands of North American card issuers, acquirers, merchants and cardholders, all of whom want the most value from their relationship with the brand, he says. "It's a very difficult thing to juggle," Moussa observes.
