Company: NEWTP
Filing Date: 2025-03-17
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0001587987-25-000050
Chunk: 162

Company: NewtekOne, Inc.
Filing Date: 2025-03-17
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 162
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 the sponsorships are terminated and NMS is unable to secure a bank sponsor for the merchant portfolios, it will not be able to process bankcard transactions for the affected portfolios. Consequently, the loss of both of NMS’ sponsorships would have a material adverse effect on our business. Furthermore, NMS’ agreements with sponsoring banks gives the sponsoring banks substantial discretion in approving certain elements of its business practices, including its solicitation, application and qualification procedures for merchants, the terms of their agreements with merchants, the processing fees that they charge, their customer service levels and its use of independent sales organizations and independent sales agents. We cannot guarantee that NMS’ sponsoring banks’ actions under these agreements would not be detrimental to us.

Other service providers, some of whom are NMS’ competitors, are necessary for the conduct of NMS’ business. The termination by service providers of these arrangements with NMS or their failure to perform these services efficiently and effectively may adversely affect NMS’ relationships with the merchants whose accounts it serves and may cause those merchants to terminate their processing agreements with NMS.

If NMS or its processors or bank sponsors fail to adhere to the standards of the Visa® and Mastercard® bankcard associations, its registrations with these associations could be terminated and it could be required to stop providing payment processing services for Visa® and Mastercard®.

Substantially all of the transactions NMS processes involve Visa or Mastercard. If NMS, its bank sponsors or its processors fail to comply with the applicable requirements of the Visa® and Mastercard® bankcard associations, Visa or Mastercard could suspend or terminate its registration. The termination of NMS’ registration or any changes in the Visa or Mastercard rules that would impair its registration could require it to stop providing payment processing services, which would have a material adverse effect on its business and could be detrimental to us.

On occasion, NMS experiences increases in interchange and sponsorship fees. If it cannot pass along these increases to its merchants, its profit margins will be reduced.

NMS pays interchange fees or assessments to bankcard associations for each transaction it processes using their credit and debit cards. From time to time, the bankcard associations increase the interchange fees that they charge processors and the sponsoring banks, which generally pass on such increases to NMS. From time to time, the sponsoring banks increase their fees as well. If NMS is not able to pass these fee increases along to merchants through corresponding increases in its processing fees, its profit margins in this line of business will be