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This article appears in the February 26, 2009, edition of ISO&Agent Weekly.
Clearent LLC has developed a proprietary acquiring system for merchant-payment processing that will attract merchant clients, and financial institution and independent sales organization partners, contends the St. Louis-based payment processor and ISO.
Clearent's ISOs and sub-ISOs can resell the system as they would any existing processing platform, says Dan Geraty, Clearent's CEO. ISOs can earn revenue from traditional merchant acquiring and "by monetizing the platform's enhanced reporting tools, billing capabilities and flexibility," says Geraty.
"I suspect growth rates will be higher than other players in the industry because of the software," says Larry Bouchard, senior vice president of business development. He declined to reveal Clearent's growth projections.
Clearent built the platform in-house over the past year and worked alone during development to avoid being "constrained by third-party software" and the costs associated with it, Bouchard says.
The processor developed the system to align with Payment Card Industry data-security standards. Merchants wary of processing with a newly developed platform instead of an existing, time-testing system can feel confident because the card brands have approved the systems, says Bouchard.
"You do not get certified by MasterCard and Visa unless they are confident that you have a foundation that will not cause harm to their systems or brands," he says. "They have to be confident we can manage the transactions and process flow in a manner that does not disrupt merchant business."
The benefits to Clearent of a proprietary system are tangible, says Adil Moussa, an analyst with Boston-based Aite Group LLC.
"Clearent can sit on top of any system and grab information and analyze it real time, which keeps the executives aware of every little change in business," including number of transactions processing, attrition rates and projected profitability, says Moussa. "The question is, how much are acquirers ready pay to integrate such solution?" he says.
Clearent is experiencing "triple-digit growth" and is hiring "at a pace that allows us to stay ahead of this growth, says Geraty, who declined to disclose how many ISOs are selling the processing platform.
