Discover Card Acceptance to Increase with New Partnership

Discover
Card Acceptance to Increase with New Partnership
Discover Financial Services announced today an agreement with
credit card processor Global Payments Inc. that should lead
to increased merchant acceptance of Discover cards. Global Payments
will begin selling Discover Network card acceptance to merchants
and it also will purchase the portion of Discover’s merchant
portfolio for which it currently provides Visa and MasterCard
processing.

Like
a similar
agreement struck with processor First Data in July, the
partnership means that merchants who use Global Payments services
will have a more convenient path to accepting Discover credit
cards. Most credit card processors offer MasterCard and Visa
acceptance to new merchants at the same time. To accept Discover,
on the other hand, merchants have to take the extra step of
applying directly to Discover. (This is true of American Express
as well.) Because Discover has fewer cards on the market than
MasterCard or Visa, it is less likely that merchants will take
the time to add Discover acceptance. With these new deals, Discover
is offered at the same time as MasterCard and Visa, and at the
same level, increasing Discover’s credibility, and most likely
increasing the number of merchants who will add Discover to
their list of accepted cards.