First Data

First Data Corporation was an American financial services company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, United States. The company's STAR Network provided nationwide domestic debit acceptance at more than 2 million retail POS, ATM, and at online outlets for nearly a third of all U.S. debit cards. First Data had six million merchants, as of 2014 the largest in the payments industry. The company handles 45% of all US credit and debit transactions, including handling prepaid gift card processing for many US brands such as Starbucks. It processed around 2,800 transactions per second and $2.2 trillion in card transactions annually, with an 80% market share in gas and groceries in 2014. First Data's SpendTrend Report is frequently used by national news networks such as WSJ, USA Today, ESPN, The New York Times, Vox Media, and Bloomberg. In January 2019, Fiserv announced to acquire First Data in an all-stock deal with equity value of $22 billion and completed the acquisition in July 2019.