EFTA Document EFTA01377648

S- /A business. In addition, because our products and services are designed to operate with a variety of systems, infrastructures, and devices, we need to continuously modify and enhance our products and services to keep pace with changes in mobile, software, communication, and database technologies. We may not be successful in either developing these modifications and enhancements or in bringing them to market in a timely and cost-effective manner. Any failure of our products and services to continue to operate effectively with third-party infrastructures and technologies could reduce the demand for our products and services, result in dissatisfaction of our sellers or their customers, and materially and adversely affect our business. Substantial and increasingly intense competition in our industry may harm our business. We compete in markets characterized by vigorous competition, changing technology, changing seller and buyer needs, evolving industry standards, and frequent introductions of new products and services. We expect competition to intensify in the future as existing and new competitors introduce new services or enhance existing services. We compete against many companies to attract customers, and some of these companies have greater financial resources and substantially larger bases of customers than we do, which may provide them with significant competitive advantages. These companies may devote greater resources to the development, promotion, and sale of products and services, and they may offer lower prices or more effectively introduce their own innovative products and services that adversely impact our growth. Mergers and acquisitions by these companies may lead to even larger competitors with more resources. We also expect new entrants to offer competitive products and services. Certain sellers have longstanding exclusive, or nearly exclusive, relationships with our competitors to accept payment cards and other services that we offer. These relationships may make it difficult or cost-prohibitive for us to conduct material amounts of business with them. Competing services tied to established brands may engender greater confidence in the safety and efficacy of their services. If we are unable to differentiate ourselves from and successfully compete with our competitors, our business will be materially and adversely affected. We may also face pricing pressures from competitors. Some potential competitors are able to offer lower prices to sellers for similar services by cross-subsidizing their payments services through other services they offer. Such competition 29 Table of Contents may result in the need for us to alter the pricing we offer to our sellers and could reduce our gross profit. In addition, as we grow, sellers may demand more customized and favorable pricing from us. and competitive pressures may require us to agree to such pricing, further reducing our gross profit. We currently negotiate pricing discounts and other incentive arrangements with certain large sellers to increase acceptance and usage of our products and services. If we continue this practice and if an increasing proportion of our sellers are large sellers, we may have to increase the discounts or incentives we provide, which could also reduce our gross profit. We are dependent on payment card networks and acquiring processors, and any changes to their rules or practices could harm our business. Our business depends on our ability to accept credit and debit cards, which ability is provided by the payment card networks, including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, and Discover. Other than American Express, we do not directly access the payment card networks that enable our acceptance of payment cards. As a result, we must rely on banks and acquiring processors to process transactions on our behalf. Our acquiring processor agreements have terms ranging from two to four years. Our three largest such agreements expire between the first quarter of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018. and two of these agreements provide for automatic renewal. These banks and acquiring processors may fail or refuse to process transactions adequately, may breach their agreements with us. or may refuse to renew these agreements on commercially reasonable terms. They night also take actions that degrade the functionality of our services, impose additional costs or requirements on us, or give preferential treatment to competitive services, including their own services. If we are unsuccessful in establishing or maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with these payment card networks, banks, and acquiring processors, our business may be harmed. The payment card networks and our acquiring processors require us to comply with payment card network operating rules, including special operating rules that apply to us as a "payment service provider" providing payment processing services to merchants. The payment card networks set these network rules and have discretion to interpret them and change them. Any changes to or interpretations of the network rules that are inconsistent with the way we or our acquiring processors currently operate may require us to make changes to our business that could be costly or difficult to implement. If we fail to make such changes or otherwise resolve the issue with the payment card networks, the networks could fine us or prohibit us from processing http://www.see.gov/Archivestedgaildata/1512673AMS)119312515369092/d937622dsla.hunl11/6/2015 7:37:12 AM] CONFIDENTIAL - PURSUANT TO FED. R. GRIM. P. 6(e) CONFIDENTIAL DB-SDNY-0074799 SDNY_GM_00220983 EFTA01377648