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Shift4 Payments Inc. on Tuesday announced it had reached a key milestone as it is now processing at least $1 billion per week in what it calls end-to-end payments volume. Shift4 earns more on end-to-end volume, which it processes itself, than on gateway traffic, which it passes off to other processors.
“Our first billion-dollar year was 2004, which we thought was a pretty big deal at the time,” said chief executive and founder Jared Isaacman, in a statement. “To achieve $1 billion of end-to-end volume in a week represents a compound annual growth rate of over 26% for the last 17 years.” Isaacman started the company as a 16-year-old in 1999.
During an earnings call with equity analysts in May, Shift4 officials projected end-to-end volume would reach between $44 billion and $46 billion for the year. At the midpoint of that range, that performance would represent an 86% increase over 2020’s $24.2 billion.
The Allentown, Pa.-based company reached its current volume mark despite a heavy concentration in restaurants and hotels, markets heavily impacted by Covid-19 and its attendant restrictions over the past year. Shift4 went public in 2020 and has seen its stock rise more than 140% over the past year, again despite rocky times for many processors and merchants due to the pandemic.
In other acquiring news, Montreal-based Nuvei Corp. said it has signed an agreement to connect to Discover Global Network, Discover Financial Services’ acquiring unit. The link will allow Nuvei’s merchants to accept Discover cards in the U.S. market and Diners Club cards in some 55 countries, the companies said.
Nuvei stressed the importance of the Discover connection in light of the growth over the past year of e-commerce traffic, which allows cardholders to make purchases globally. “We are excited to be partnering with Discover Global Network, as we continue to strengthen our global acquiring capabilities and further improve the transaction experience for our merchants and their customers,” said Philip Fayer, Nuvei’s chairman and chief executive, in a statement.
Nuvei, which in 2018 changed its name from Pivotal Payments, serves merchants in 200 markets worldwide, with local acquiring services provided in 44. Online traffic accounted for 80% of its volume in the fourth quarter and 76% for all of 2020, according to data it released in March. That dependence on e-commerce is increasing. Total volume in the first quarter reached $20.6 billion, up 132% year-over-year, with online volume accounting for 87% of the total.
