At this point you may be thinking to yourself, "so what, many financial products produce residual income for the sales people and providers of the service." This is a good point and it's exactly correct. Let's take insurance for example. Premiums create a residual income stream for custodians of the account as long as the client maintains the policy. The difference between insurance and other financial products and merchant accounts is that the residual income stream that merchant accounts produce is dictated by the merchant's gross sales. Merchants pay more profits into the pockets of providers as their business increases and their gross credit card sales increase. So not only do merchant service providers gain a self-sustaining, residual income stream by signing a merchant account - that income stream grows itself!
Now you know why five sales people walk into your store each month asking for statements, or why 10% of your junk-mail each week is comprised of sales pamphlets from the digital payment agent training newest merchant service provider. Merchant processing is a very lucrative business with a residual profit stream that can essentially grow itself. The trick is to use this competition to your advantage by getting the best pricing structure (flat rate or interchange) at the lowest rates.
