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Related Party Transactions
9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2019
Related Party Transactions [Abstract]  
Related Party Transactions Related Party Transactions

Merchant Alliances
A significant portion of the Company’s business within the First Data segment is conducted through merchant alliances between the Company and financial institutions. To the extent the Company maintains a controlling financial interest in an alliance, the alliance’s financial statements are consolidated with those of the Company and the related processing fees are treated as an intercompany transaction and eliminated in consolidation. To the extent the Company has significant influence but not control in an alliance, the Company uses the equity method of accounting to account for its investment in the alliance. As a result, the Company’s consolidated revenues include processing fees, administrative service fees, and other fees charged to alliances accounted for under the equity method. Such fees totaled $31 million for both the three and nine months ended September 30, 2019. No directors or officers of the Company have ownership interests in any of the alliances. The formation of each of these alliances generally involves the Company and the bank contributing contractual merchant relationships to the alliance and a cash payment from one owner to the other to achieve the desired ownership percentage for each. The Company and the bank enter into a long-term processing service agreement as part of the negotiation process. This agreement governs the Company’s provision of transaction processing services to the alliance. As of September 30, 2019, the Company had approximately $35 million of amounts due from unconsolidated merchant alliances included within trade accounts receivable, net in the Company’s consolidated balance sheet.
In July 2019, the Company and Bank of America jointly announced the dissolution of the Banc of America Merchant Services joint venture (“BAMS”), to be effective June 2020. The Company owns 51% of BAMS and BAMS’ financial results are consolidated into the Company’s financial statements. Upon dissolution of the joint venture, the Company is entitled to receive a 51% share of the joint venture’s value via an agreed upon contractual process. In addition, Bank of America has the right to require the Company to continue providing merchant processing and related services to the joint venture clients allocated to Bank of America in the dissolution of the joint venture through June 2023 at current pricing. The Company anticipates an ongoing relationship with Bank of America to provide processing and other support services to other Bank of America merchant clients following the joint venture’s dissolution.