Enterprise Spending In Technology Services Intact, Debit Legislation Moves Forward

According to Goldman Sachs, Accenture Plc ACN growth is back to positive, swinging to a Q1 positive revenue growth from a loss in the year-ago period. “On Europe, ACN noted the region is expected to lag the Americas and there’s some uncertainty, but it has not impacted business yet. Importantly, management also indicated that it does not see Europe in reversion backwards…. With the conference committee through with its final markup of the financial reform bill now called the Dodd-Frank Act, we look at the impact of the interchange language in the bill with respect to the networks and the merchant acquirers,” the analysts say. “The latest version of the bill calls for regulation of debit interchange, the authority lying with the Federal Reserve Board. The Fed will be given the mandate to set rules for interchange levels under a “reasonable and proportional” standard, which we believe is a positive given that the Fed has been the most rational body with regards to policies in the payments universe… Overall we believe the impact to Mastercard Incorporated MA and Visa Inc V is marginal (1-2% of earnings for CY2011), while merchant acquirers could potentially benefit through more opaque bundled pricing,” Goldman Sachs adds. More Analyst Ratings here