FirstData.com The world's largest provider of merchant processing services.
First Data
First Data is headquartered in Greenwood Village, Colorado, and handles payment processing services. It is one of the largest electronic payment processing and payment solution providers in the world. The services include credit and debit card processing, gift cards, payroll processing and other merchant transaction services. It also provides TeleCheck check acceptance services for merchants and fraud protections for businesses. There are also mobile payment and e-commerce services available. Now virtually any way a customer can pay for a transaction, First Data can process it.
History
The company started as Mid-America Bankcard Association in 1969 in Omaha, Nebraska. It was originally a non-profit cooperative that offered bankcard processing to local merchants. In 1971 it became an incorporated for-profit company. At the time it had 110 employees. American Express bought eighty percent of the company in 1980, and the remaining part of the company was bought slowly over the next three years. American Express spun off the company as First Data Corporation in 1992. In 1995 the company merged with Western Union. Over the next few years First Data expanded internationally into the rest of North America and into Australia and the U.K. It expanded the Western Union division, creating more locations and making Western Union one of the leading electronic commerce services worldwide. First Data made aggressive expansions into the worldwide market from 2001 through 2005. It now is intimately integrated into the European and Asian payment processing markets.
Western Union
First Data spun Western Union off from its parent company in 2006. Western Union is now its own publicly traded entity. Te spin off was part of a larger restructuring plan, and gave 100 percent of the Western Union shares to First Data shareholders. The company continues to grow and add money-transferring agents worldwide.
Website
The First Data website offers detailed information about each of its many payment processing and bill paying solutions. There is also information about its fraud prevention services, which include collections services to recover delinquent or fraudulent payments. Electronic verification services help keep merchants from being cheated by identity theft and stolen credit card data. The services are packaged as risk and fraud management services, including several different services to prevent fraud in electronic transactions.
Expansion into China
Jumping on the China bandwagon, First Data is seriously pursuing a significant expansion into the company. A survey into the market was commissioned to ascertain the foreign banking opinion about moving the electronic payment and credit and debit card system into China. Through the release of the survey on the First Data website, the company encourages the foreign electronic commerce industry into China. The emerging Chinese market is one of the largest in the world and offers over a billion potential customers. Getting a toehold into the Chinese market could mean an unprecedented expansion of the company as the Chinese follow the Western world’s trend of converting to a more cashless society. Such a society is then dependent on large-scale electronic processing services, and First Data stands ready to step in and fill that need.
Languages
English
Address
- Corporate Headquarters
- 6200 South Quebec Street
- Greenwood Village, CO 80111
- Phone: +1 303 488-8000
- Toll Free: 800 735-3362
Contact
- Card Issuing General Inquiries: 1-800 337-1222
- Merchant Services Customer Service: 800 762-6663
Additional Information
Related Domains
External Links
- Stock: FDC
- Alexa: FirstData.com
References
- 1) Hoovers.com
- 2) FirstData.com
- 3) Wikipedia
