The world of payment processing is changing very rapidly with technology advancement impacting both merchants and consumers alike. With all of these changes in technology, it’s hard for merchants to keep pace and know they are optimizing their relationships with customers and vendors while maintaining control over costs. Part of Delta’s mandate includes our responsibility to continue searching for the best innovation in payment processing, vetting these new technologies/applications and educating our members on how best to utilize both existing and new technologies for both cost savings and improvements to their businesses. Size matters, and so does buying power. The larger you are as a customer, you can achieve better pricing and access to products and services. By creating a cooperative, where companies can combine their purchasing clout, everyone can win with lower costs than they could achieve on their own. In the United States, there are over 40,000 cooperatives, with even multibillion-dollar companies joining cooperatives with other companies to achieve savings and better access. As an example, Visa was started as a cooperative of banks. We use this cooperative business model to provide our members with significantly better pricing than they could achieve on their own, access to a broader and better portfolio of products and services and rebates of a minimum of 50% of the commission that we earn from providing these services. This is unheard of in the payment processing industry – and to some even counter intuitive – but it provides our members with yet another way to enhance the profitability of their businesses.