PaymentCompanies.com Entity Map
This is the machine-readable knowledge map for PaymentCompanies.com, published to the EntityMap v1.0 specification. It describes the payment companies profiled here and the concepts of the payments industry they operate in, with evidence passages drawn from real pages on this site and links into the open knowledge graph.
View the EntityMap JSON → (106 entities · 280 evidence chunks · EntityMap v1.0)
Each entity below shows its first evidence passage. The JSON carries the full set.
Adyen
A Dutch listed payments company that is both the gateway and the licensed acquiring bank on a single platform, serving mainly large enterprise and platform merchants.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adyen
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Checkout.com
- RELATES_TO → Worldpay
Most payment companies are assemblies: a gateway from one vendor, a risk engine from another, an acquiring relationship with a sponsoring bank, a settlement process bolted across the top. Adyen is the exception the rest of the industry is measured against — one platform, built in-house, where the gateway, risk engine, acquiring licence and settlement all belong to the same regulated entity. Adyen N.V.
Adyen — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Affirm
A Nasdaq-listed US buy-now-pay-later lender that underwrites instalment loans at the point of sale — mostly interest-bearing, never with late fees — originated through partner banks and funded through securitisations and loan sales rather than deposits.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirm_Holdings
Relations:
- PART_OF → Buy Now, Pay Later
- RELATES_TO → Klarna
Affirm is a lender that sells itself at checkout. When a shopper reaches the payment step at a merchant that has integrated it, Affirm offers a loan for that specific purchase instead of a card charge, underwrites the shopper on the spot, pays the merchant, and then collects from the consumer in instalments.
Affirm — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Airwallex
A global financial platform that gives businesses multi-currency accounts, cross-border payouts, FX, spend cards and online payment acceptance on its own licence network rather than through a single acquiring partner.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airwallex
Relations:
- PART_OF → Cross-Border & Global Acquiring
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Payoneer
Airwallex is a licensed financial platform for businesses that trade across borders. It was founded in Melbourne in 2015 by Jack Zhang, Max Li, Lucy Liu, Xijing Dai and Ki-Lok Wong, moved its headquarters to Hong Kong in 2018, and as of December 2025 runs dual global headquarters in Singapore and San Francisco. It employs roughly 2,000 people across offices including London, Amsterdam, Shanghai, Tokyo and Berlin. The product set is broader than the phrase "payments company" suggests.
Airwallex — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
BILL
A NYSE-listed accounts payable and accounts receivable automation platform for small and mid-sized businesses and the accounting firms that serve them, which both runs the approval workflow and moves the money.
Relations:
- PART_OF → B2B, AP & AR Automation
- RELATES_TO → Tipalti
- RELATES_TO → Melio
BILL sits between a small business's accounting ledger and its bank. On the payables side it captures supplier invoices, routes them through configurable approval workflows, then executes the payment itself — over ACH, virtual card, mailed paper check, international wire or local-currency transfer — and syncs the result back to QuickBooks, Xero, Sage Intacct, NetSuite or Dynamics 365 Business Central. On the receivables side it issues invoices and collects payment. The part that distinguishes BILL from workflow software is that last step.
BILL — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Braintree
PayPal's full-stack enterprise payment gateway and processing platform, offering direct card processing with native PayPal and Venmo acceptance and a portable card vault.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braintree_(company)
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
- RELATES_TO → Checkout.com
Braintree is the enterprise-facing half of PayPal's merchant business, and a different product from the PayPal button most people picture. It is a full-stack payment platform: gateway, tokenization vault, risk tooling and merchant account delivered together, so a merchant integrates once and accepts cards, PayPal, Venmo, wallets and buy-now-pay-later through one API and one settlement flow.
Braintree — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
BVNK
A London-headquartered stablecoin payments company that gives businesses one API and a set of licensed entities for moving money between stablecoins and fiat — collecting, converting, holding and paying out — so they can use stablecoin rails without holding crypto licences themselves.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Stablecoin & Crypto Payments
BVNK is a London-headquartered payments company that sells businesses the ability to move money across stablecoin rails without becoming a crypto company themselves. One integration gives a customer the ability to collect payments in stablecoins with automatic conversion to conventional currency, hold balances, convert between currencies, and pay out in either stablecoin or fiat over ACH, SEPA, Fedwire and Swift. It was founded in 2021 by Jesse Hemson-Struthers, Donald Jackson and Chris Harmse, and states more than 300 employees. Stablecoin.
BVNK — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
CardConnect
A Fiserv-owned merchant acquirer and ISO whose CardPointe gateway, CardSecure tokenisation and Clover hardware are sold both directly to merchants and, mainly, through a large agent/ISO and software-partner channel.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Gateways
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Square
CardConnect is a merchant acquirer and independent sales organization operating as a wholly owned brand inside Fiserv, Inc. It signs US businesses to card acceptance under merchant processing agreements and supplies the software layer merchants actually touch: the CardPointe gateway and merchant portal, the CardSecure encryption and tokenization service, its own integrated and semi-integrated terminals, and Clover point-of-sale hardware resold from its parent.
CardConnect — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Cass Information Systems
A Nasdaq-listed Missouri company that audits, rates, pays and reports on transportation and facility invoices for large shippers and corporates, and that owns its own bank — Cass Commercial Bank — through which it disburses the money.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Freight Audit & Payment
Cass Information Systems (Nasdaq: CASS) is a St. Louis company that processes other companies' bills. A large shipper, manufacturer or retailer hands Cass the invoices arriving from its freight carriers, utilities, waste haulers and maintenance vendors. Cass audits each one against the contract or tariff that should govern it, corrects or rejects what is wrong, codes the approved charges into the customer's general ledger, and pays the vendor.
Cass Information Systems — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Cedar
A patient financial experience platform that takes over the billing, communication, coverage and payment steps after a US healthcare visit, sitting on top of the provider's existing billing system rather than replacing it.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Healthcare Payments
- RELATES_TO → Waystar
Cedar is what happens to a medical bill after the insurer has finished with it. It plugs into the provider's existing practice management or EHR billing system, pulls the balances the patient owes, and owns everything downstream: email and SMS outreach, a plain-language AI summary of what the bill is for, real-time checks against the patient's deductible and health benefit account balances, the payment itself, an installment plan if the patient needs one, an operator portal for staff, and a voice channel for people who still call.
Cedar — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Chargebee
A subscription billing and revenue management platform that sits between a company's product and its payment gateways, handling pricing and plans, invoicing, dunning, tax, quoting and revenue recognition without processing the payments itself.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Subscription Billing & Merchant of Record
- RELATES_TO → Recurly
Chargebee is billing software. It models what a customer is entitled to and what they owe — plans, pricing, usage, entitlements, proration, trials, coupons. It issues invoices and receipts, chases failed payments, applies tax treatment, and produces the revenue recognition schedules a finance team needs at close. When money has to be taken, it hands the instruction to a payment gateway the merchant already contracted with, and steps back. It is not a processor and not a gateway.
Chargebee — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Chase Payment Solutions
JPMorgan Chase's merchant acquiring business for small and mid-sized US businesses, where the same institution is both the acquiring bank and the processor.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Payment_Solutions
Relations:
- PART_OF → Acquirers & Large Processors
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
Chase Payment Solutions is the small-business merchant acquiring product of JPMorgan Chase & Co. It is the current name for a business that has been through several: MNet in 1985, the Paymentech brand from 1996, Chase Paymentech as a Chase/First Data joint venture from 1997, wholly owned by JPMorgan Chase after the joint venture was unwound in 2008, and renamed Chase Payment Solutions for the small-business channel in 2022. The legal contracting entity is still Paymentech, LLC. The name change matters because it split the business in two.
Chase Payment Solutions — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Checkout.com
A London-headquartered full-stack payments company that is a principal member of the major card networks and does its own gateway, acquiring, processing and risk work for large, mostly cross-border online merchants.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkout.com
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Worldpay
Checkout.com is a full-stack acquirer. It owns the gateway, holds the acquiring licenses and runs the processing platform, and sells all three under a single merchant contract. That structure is the most important thing to understand about it. Full-stack acquirer. A provider that is itself a principal member of the card networks and also runs its own gateway and processing software.
Checkout.com — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Clover
Fiserv's cloud point-of-sale and business-management platform for small and mid-sized merchants, sold through banks, ISOs and Fiserv's own direct channel.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clover_Network
Relations:
- PART_OF → Commerce & POS Platforms
- RELATES_TO → Toast
Clover is two things wearing one name. It is a point-of-sale operating system with a proprietary hardware family — Station, Mini, Flex, Duo, Go and a self-service Kiosk — and it is the merchant-facing brand on top of Fiserv's card acquiring business. The software is what staff touch. The acquiring is what moves the money, and that part is Fiserv's. This matters because of how Clover is sold. Most Clover accounts do not come from Clover.
Clover — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Corpay
An S&P 500 corporate payments company, renamed from FLEETCOR in 2024, that runs three businesses: B2B accounts payable and commercial cards, cross-border payments and FX risk management, and closed-loop fuel, vehicle and lodging payment networks.
Relations:
- PART_OF → B2B, AP & AR Automation
Corpay is not one company doing one thing. It is a holding structure around three distinct payment businesses, and a buyer evaluating it is almost always evaluating one of them rather than the whole. Vehicle Payments. Closed-loop and network fuel cards, plus EV charging, parking, tolls and maintenance payments. This is the business the company was built on under the FLEETCOR name. Corporate Payments.
Corpay — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
dLocal
A Nasdaq-listed, Uruguay-founded cross-border payments company that lets global merchants collect from and pay out to consumers in emerging markets through one API and one contract, using local payment methods and local settlement.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DLocal
Relations:
- PART_OF → Cross-Border & Global Acquiring
- RELATES_TO → EBANX
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
dLocal solves one specific problem. A global digital company wants revenue from Brazil, Nigeria, Mexico or Indonesia, and finds that reaching those consumers requires a local legal entity, a local bank account, a local acquiring relationship, local licensing and support for payment methods that exist nowhere else. Multiply by twenty countries and the project stops being a payments integration and becomes a corporate expansion program.
dLocal — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Durango Merchant Services
A small, long-established Colorado ISO that specialises in placing high-risk, high-volume and international merchants into card-processing accounts, sponsored domestically by Fifth Third Bank, N.A.
Relations:
- PART_OF → High-Risk Specialists
- RELATES_TO → PaymentCloud
Durango Merchant Services is a six-person independent sales organization operating from a single office in Durango, Colorado, per its Better Business Bureau profile. Its business is taking applications from merchants that mainstream acquirers refuse — supplements and nutraceuticals, multi-level marketing, subscription and continuity billing, telemedicine and online pharmacy, firearms dealers, tobacco and vape, credit repair, dating sites, online liquor, fantasy sports, travel, luxury goods and around a dozen more categories — and placing them with an
Durango Merchant Services — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Dwolla
Dwolla is a US bank-payments API that lets software platforms and enterprises move money over ACH, the RTP network and FedNow through a single integration, with the actual transfers performed by partner financial institutions.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwolla
Relations:
- PART_OF → Bank Rails & Payment Operations
- RELATES_TO → Modern Treasury
- RELATES_TO → Moov
Dwolla sells an application programming interface for moving money over United States bank rails. Its customers are software platforms and enterprises — not consumers, not retail merchants — that need to push and pull funds between their users' bank accounts without becoming a regulated money transmitter or building direct integrations with banks themselves.
Dwolla — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
EBANX
A Brazil-founded, privately held cross-border payments platform that lets global merchants collect from and pay out to consumers across Latin America, Africa and Asia using local payment methods, through a single integration.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Cross-Border & Global Acquiring
- RELATES_TO → dLocal
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
EBANX sits between global digital merchants and consumers in emerging markets. A streaming service, marketplace, SaaS company or games publisher integrates once, and EBANX supplies local payment methods, local processing, local currency handling and settlement in each country — so the merchant never has to establish a local entity, a local bank account or a local acquiring relationship. It runs collections in one direction and local-currency payouts in the other, through the same integration. Local payment methods.
EBANX — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Elavon
The merchant acquiring arm of U.S. Bank, processing card payments for merchants in the United States, Canada and Europe under its own brand and on behalf of partner banks.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elavon
Relations:
- PART_OF → Acquirers & Large Processors
- RELATES_TO → Fiserv
- RELATES_TO → Global Payments
- RELATES_TO → Chase Payment Solutions
Elavon is the merchant acquiring arm of U.S. Bank. That fact explains most of what is distinctive about it, good and bad. U.S. Bank sponsors the merchant into the card networks; Elavon underwrites and boards the merchant, holds the agreement, settles funds into the designated account and carries the acquiring and chargeback exposure. The acquiring bank and the processor are one corporate group. Sponsorship. Only a member bank can put a merchant into the Visa and Mastercard systems.
Elavon — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Finix
A full-stack acquirer-processor that sells payments infrastructure to software platforms and PayFacs — and, increasingly, directly to merchants — with direct connections to the card networks rather than a reseller relationship with a legacy processor.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Embedded Payments & PayFac-as-a-Service
- RELATES_TO → Rainforest
Finix supplies the machinery of payment acceptance to companies that want to offer payments without building a processor. Founded in San Francisco in 2015 by Richie Serna and Sean Donovan — some trade coverage says 2016 — it employs an estimated 175 to 200 people across San Francisco and Cincinnati, per third-party trackers rather than the company.
Finix — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
FIS
A Jacksonville-based banking and payments technology company that sells core processing, card issuing and money-movement systems to financial institutions, and which finished exiting merchant acquiring in January 2026 by selling the last of its Worldpay stake.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIS_(company)
Relations:
- PART_OF → Issuer Processing & Core Banking
- RELATES_TO → Fiserv
FIS sells to banks, credit unions, capital markets firms and corporate treasuries. It does not sell card acceptance to merchants, and since January 2026 it does not own anything that does. That is the most important correction this profile can make, because many businesses still believe otherwise — they signed with "Worldpay from FIS" between 2019 and 2024 and reasonably concluded FIS was their payment processor. The company is old and heavily acquired.
FIS — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Fiserv
One of the largest US merchant acquirers and bank core-processing companies, which since buying First Data in 2019 both acquires card payments for merchants and runs the account systems of thousands of banks and credit unions.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiserv
Relations:
- PART_OF → Acquirers & Large Processors
- RELATES_TO → Toast
- RELATES_TO → Global Payments
Fiserv is two large businesses inside one shell. One takes card payments for merchants. The other runs the account systems of banks and credit unions. They were separate companies until 2019, when Fiserv — a Milwaukee bank technology firm founded in 1984 — bought First Data Corporation in a stock deal widely reported at about $22 billion, acquiring one of the largest merchant books in the United States and the Clover point-of-sale platform. It now reports two segments, Merchant Solutions and Financial Solutions. Merchant acquirer.
Fiserv — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Forter
A fraud prevention and identity decisioning platform that returns an instant approve-or-decline on e-commerce transactions, account signups and logins, and takes on chargeback liability for fraud on the transactions it approves.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forter
Relations:
- PART_OF → Fraud & Risk
Forter is a decision, not a payment. It sits in the checkout and account flows of an online merchant and returns a real-time verdict — approve or decline — on a transaction, a new account signup, a login, a return or a promotion redemption. The merchant's own acquirer and payment service provider then process the payment as normal. Forter does not acquire, does not settle, does not hold merchant funds and does not appear anywhere in the money flow. What makes the decision unusual is the data behind it.
Forter — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Global Payments
An Atlanta-based merchant acquirer that became a pure-play merchant payments company in January 2026, when it acquired Worldpay and simultaneously sold its card-issuing processing business to FIS.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Payments
Relations:
- PART_OF → Acquirers & Large Processors
- RELATES_TO → Fiserv
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
Global Payments is a merchant acquirer, and since January 2026 it is only a merchant acquirer. That is a recent and deliberate change. Until then the Atlanta company had two halves: a merchant business that took card payments for restaurants, retailers, schools and clinics, and an Issuer Solutions business, inherited from the 2019 TSYS merger, that processed cards on behalf of the banks that issue them. In January 2026 it sold the second half to FIS and used the proceeds to buy Worldpay. What is left is one operating segment. Acquiring versus issuing.
Global Payments — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
GoCardless
GoCardless is a bank payments company that specialises in pulling money directly from customers' bank accounts — direct debit schemes such as Bacs, SEPA, ACH, BECS and PAD, plus open-banking-initiated instant bank payments — for recurring and invoice collection.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GoCardless
Relations:
- PART_OF → Bank Rails & Payment Operations
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
GoCardless collects money by pulling it out of the payer's bank account rather than charging a card. A business sets up a mandate — the payer's standing authorization to be debited — and then collects on schedule through GoCardless's API, its dashboard, or an integration with accounting and billing software such as Xero, QuickBooks, Zuora and Salesforce.
GoCardless — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Gravity Payments
A Seattle-based independent merchant services provider selling card processing, terminals and working capital to US small businesses, best known outside the industry for setting a $70,000 company minimum salary in 2015.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_Payments
Relations:
- PART_OF → SMB Merchant Services
- RELATES_TO → Helcim
- RELATES_TO → Square
- RELATES_TO → Stax Payments
Gravity Payments is an independent merchant services provider selling card processing to US small businesses. It was founded in February 2004 by brothers Dan and Lucas Price, Dan having started the business while still in college, and is headquartered in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle, with offices in Honolulu since 2007 and Boise since 2017. Wikipedia puts headcount around 240; the company's own site cited 200-plus in late 2019, and no current figure is published.
Gravity Payments — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Heartland
A US merchant acquirer and point-of-sale provider founded in 1997, acquired by Global Payments in 2016 and, as of July 2026, being folded into the Global Payments brand.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartland_Payment_Systems
Relations:
- PART_OF → Acquirers & Large Processors
- RELATES_TO → Toast
Heartland is a merchant acquirer and point-of-sale vendor selling card acceptance, terminals and business software to small and mid-sized US businesses. It is not an independent company. Global Payments Inc. (NYSE: GPN) acquired Heartland Payment Systems in 2016 in a deal widely reported at around US$4.3 billion, and has owned it outright ever since. The distinction matters more in 2026 than it did in 2017, because the brand is on its way out.
Heartland — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Helcim
A Calgary-based merchant services provider for small and mid-sized businesses in Canada and the United States that publishes its interchange-plus margins openly and applies volume discounts automatically.
Relations:
- PART_OF → SMB Merchant Services
- RELATES_TO → Square
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Stax Payments
Helcim is a merchant services provider that sells card acceptance plus a bundle of small-business software to merchants in the United States and Canada. It was founded in Calgary in 2006 by Nic Beique and stayed bootstrapped for roughly its first fifteen years. Its distinguishing characteristic is not a technology claim: it is that Helcim publishes its own margin. Almost no merchant services provider does this. The industry standard is to quote on application, which means a buyer cannot compare providers without entering a sales process with each one.
Helcim — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
InvoiceCloud
An electronic bill presentment and payment platform for utilities, local government, county tax offices and insurers, sold as a hosted service that replaces the biller's own payment portal and posts results back into its billing system.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Bill Payment & EBPP
- RELATES_TO → Paymentus
InvoiceCloud has two audiences and only one of them chose it. The customer is a biller — a water utility, a city, a county tax office, an insurer — buying a hosted platform to replace its own payment portal. The user is the resident who lands on an InvoiceCloud page because their municipality printed a link on a paper bill. Most people who meet the brand are in the second group, which is why it is at once one of the more widely used payment platforms in the country and one of the least written about. Electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP).
InvoiceCloud — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Klarna
A Swedish-founded, NYSE-listed digital bank and buy-now-pay-later provider that offers pay-now, pay-later and longer financing at checkout in 26 markets, and — unusually for BNPL — funds most of its lending from its own retail deposits rather than from capital markets.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klarna
Relations:
- PART_OF → Buy Now, Pay Later
- RELATES_TO → Affirm
Klarna is a bank that presents itself as a payment method. At a merchant's checkout it offers a shopper one of three things: Pay Now, which settles immediately; Pay Later, interest-free instalments; or Fair Financing, a longer-term consumer loan. Klarna underwrites the consumer, takes the credit risk, pays the merchant and charges the merchant a fee for the conversion.
Klarna — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Mastercard
Mastercard is a global card network that operates the Banknet switching system, writes the rules for Mastercard-branded cards and sets their default interchange rates — it does not issue cards, lend money, or hold merchant accounts.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastercard
Relations:
- PART_OF → Card Networks & Clearing
- RELATES_TO → Visa
Mastercard is a network, not a processor and not a bank. It issues no cards, extends no credit, underwrites no merchants and holds no merchant funds. What it operates is Banknet — the switching system that carries authorization messages — plus the clearing and settlement layer that moves money between the bank that issued the card and the bank that signed up the merchant. Structurally it is the same four-party model Visa uses, and for most merchant purposes the two are interchangeable. Four-party model.
Mastercard — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Melio
A US small-business bill payment platform, now owned by accounting software company Xero, whose central trick is letting a business pay any vendor by card even when the vendor does not accept cards — the vendor receives an ACH transfer or a paper cheque.
Relations:
- PART_OF → B2B, AP & AR Automation
- RELATES_TO → BILL
Melio decouples how a small business pays from how its vendor gets paid. The payer funds a bill from a bank account or from a credit or debit card. The vendor receives an ACH transfer or a mailed paper check — without accepting cards, and without needing a Melio account at all. That single decoupling is the product, and it is where most of Melio's revenue comes from. Everything else follows from it.
Melio — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Modern Treasury
A payment operations company that gives businesses one API for moving money over bank rails — ACH, wires, RTP, FedNow, checks and stablecoins — either on top of the customer's own bank accounts or, more recently, through Modern Treasury's own payment service provider stack.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Bank Rails & Payment Operations
- RELATES_TO → Dwolla
Modern Treasury sells the software that surrounds a bank account. In the model it was built on, the customer keeps its own accounts at its own banks and Modern Treasury supplies the connectivity into them, the interface for initiating payments, the approval workflow governing who can release money, a double-entry ledger, and automated reconciliation matching what the bank reports against what the business expected. The bank holds the money. Modern Treasury holds the record of it. Payment operations.
Modern Treasury — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Moov
A US payments platform that lets software companies embed money movement — card acceptance, ACH, instant payments, stored-value wallets and virtual card issuing — through a single API.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Embedded Payments & PayFac-as-a-Service
- RELATES_TO → Finix
Moov sells money movement as a software component. Its customers are not merchants; they are software companies. Vertical SaaS vendors, loan servicers, construction platforms and credit union core providers integrate one API and a set of drop-in interface components Moov calls Drops, and get card acceptance, ACH, real-time transfers, stored-value wallets and virtual card issuing on a single ledger. The commercially interesting part is not the API.
Moov — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
NMI
A white-label payment gateway and embedded-payments platform sold to ISOs, ISVs, banks and payment facilitators rather than to merchants directly.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Gateways
- RELATES_TO → Authorize.net
NMI sells the plumbing, not the merchant account, and it does not sell to merchants at all. Its own page for independent sales organizations states plainly that it does not recruit merchants directly. Its customers are ISOs, independent software vendors, banks and payment facilitators, who resell the NMI gateway under their own brand, set their own prices and own the merchant relationship end to end. The practical consequence is that most businesses running on NMI have never heard the name.
NMI — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
North
A privately held, founder-owned US merchant acquirer built by acquisition, founded in 1992 as North American Bancard and rebranded to North in 2024.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_(payment_processing_company)
Relations:
- PART_OF → Acquirers & Large Processors
- RELATES_TO → Global Payments
North is a non-bank merchant acquirer headquartered in Troy, Michigan. It was founded in 1992 as North American Bancard by Marc Gardner, who still owns and controls it, and it rebranded to North in 2024. The legal entity North American Bancard, LLC still exists, and the company's site footer also names NorthAB, LLC. The most important thing to understand about North is that it is a roll-up. It did not build one platform and grow it; it bought processors, gateways and point-of-sale companies over three decades and put a single brand on top of them.
North — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Nuvei
A Montreal-headquartered global payment platform combining its own acquiring licences, gateway, alternative payment methods and payouts, taken private by Advent International in 2024.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuvei
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
- RELATES_TO → Worldpay
- RELATES_TO → Checkout.com
Nuvei is a merchant acquirer and payments platform headquartered in Montreal. Founded in 2003 by Philip Fayer as Pivotal Payments, it is not a gateway reselling somebody else's acquiring, and it is not an aggregator. It holds acquiring licences of its own, owns its gateway, and takes the merchant relationship directly.
Nuvei — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Paddle
A merchant of record for software and digital products: Paddle buys and resells the vendor's product, so it — not the vendor — is the legal seller, the name on the customer's card statement, and the party registered for sales tax and VAT worldwide.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Subscription Billing & Merchant of Record
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
Paddle is a merchant of record for software and digital products. Be blunt about the mechanics first: when a customer buys a vendor's software through Paddle, the customer is not buying from the vendor. The customer is buying from Paddle. Paddle contracts with the buyer, takes the payment, issues the invoice and appears on the card statement. Merchant of record.
Paddle — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Pagos
A payments intelligence company whose software reads data from a merchant's existing processors and gateways to monitor, benchmark and optimise payment performance — it does not process, route or hold money.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Orchestration & Payment Intelligence
- RELATES_TO → Spreedly
Pagos is a measurement company. It connects to the processors and gateways a merchant already uses, normalizes the data those systems emit into one comparable dataset, enriches it with its own card-BIN database, and reports on what is happening: approval rates, declines and their reasons, retry outcomes, fees, interchange, and how it all compares against benchmarks. It is not in the payment.
Pagos — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
PaymentCloud
A US merchant-account sales organisation that specialises in high-risk and hard-to-place businesses, placing them with third-party acquiring banks and gateways rather than acquiring or underwriting the merchants itself.
Relations:
- PART_OF → High-Risk Specialists
- RELATES_TO → Durango Merchant Services
PaymentCloud sells merchant accounts to businesses that mainstream acquirers decline. Its published industry list runs to adult, CBD and hemp, nutraceuticals, firearms dealers, online pharmacy, debt consolidation and credit repair, dropshipping, subscription and continuity billing, bail bonds, tech support, alcohol, travel and timeshare. That list is the product. Everything else — gateways, terminals, chargeback advice — is resold from someone else. It is not a payment processor in the sense most buyers mean, and read closely it does not claim to be.
PaymentCloud — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Paymentus
A NYSE-listed electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) platform that runs the bill-payment layer for utilities, municipalities, insurers, telecoms and financial institutions, and connects those billers to consumer channels such as PayPal and Walmart through its Instant Payment Network.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Bill Payment & EBPP
Paymentus is the software and payment layer that sits between an organisation that sends bills and the customers who pay them. Utilities, municipalities, insurers, telecoms, banks and property managers integrate it, and Paymentus then presents the bill and collects the money across every channel the biller wants — web, mobile app, text, email, interactive voice response, call-centre agent, kiosk, walk-in cash and printed paper.
Paymentus — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payoneer
A NASDAQ-listed cross-border payments company that gives freelancers, marketplace sellers and small exporters a multi-currency account for receiving payouts, with cards, B2B payments, working capital and a merchant checkout layered on top.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payoneer
Relations:
- PART_OF → Cross-Border & Global Acquiring
- RELATES_TO → Airwallex
- RELATES_TO → PayPal
Payoneer sits between the world's large marketplaces and the small businesses that sell on or through them. Founded in New York in 2005 by Yuval Tal with roughly $2m of seed funding, it trades on NASDAQ as PAYO under the legal name Payoneer Global Inc., with offices including Petah Tikva, London, Seoul, Munich, Hong Kong and Manila. The core product is a receiving account, not a merchant account. A seller or freelancer opens a Payoneer account and is issued local account details in several currencies.
Payoneer — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
PayPal
A listed payments group that runs both a consumer wallet with hundreds of millions of accounts and a merchant-acquiring business, plus the Venmo, Braintree, Zettle, Xoom and Hyperwallet brands.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
PayPal is two businesses wearing one brand, and confusing them is the most common mistake merchants make when evaluating it. The first is a consumer wallet: 439 million active accounts at the end of 2025, holding balances, linked bank accounts and linked cards across approximately 200 markets. The second is a merchant-acquiring business that accepts payment from that wallet and also processes ordinary card transactions. The wallet is why the merchant business exists.
PayPal — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payrix
An embedded payments and PayFac-as-a-service platform for vertical software companies, founded in 2015, acquired by FIS in 2022, folded into the Worldpay for Platforms brand in 2025, and now part of Global Payments.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Embedded Payments & PayFac-as-a-Service
- RELATES_TO → Finix
- RELATES_TO → Rainforest
Payrix gives software platforms the infrastructure to embed payments inside their own product: sub-merchant onboarding, automated underwriting, card and ACH processing, split funding, payouts, chargeback handling, billing and portfolio reporting, all through an API. It was founded in 2015 — Benny Silberstein was a co-founder and served as chief strategy officer — and it sells to software companies, never directly to individual merchants. The name is the first thing to get straight.
Payrix — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Paysafe
A NYSE-listed payments group that pairs merchant acquiring for iGaming and digital entertainment with consumer digital wallets (Skrill, Neteller) and the paysafecard eCash network.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paysafe
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Nuvei
- RELATES_TO → Worldpay
Paysafe is two businesses in one listed company, and understanding the pair is the whole point. Merchant Solutions is a merchant acquirer and processor. It holds the merchant relationship, underwrites, and settles funds, with its book concentrated in iGaming, sports betting, video gaming, travel and retail. It reported US$904.7 million of revenue in 2025, making it the larger of the two segments. Digital Wallets is consumer-facing.
Paysafe — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Rainforest
An Atlanta-based PayFac-as-a-service provider that lets vertical SaaS platforms embed payments under Rainforest's payment facilitator registration, competing on platform economics, portfolio migration and contractual data portability.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Embedded Payments & PayFac-as-a-Service
- RELATES_TO → Finix
Rainforest Pay, Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in Atlanta, founded in 2022 by Joshua Silver. It gives software platforms the machinery to embed payments: real-time sub-merchant onboarding and underwriting, card, ACH, PayPal, Venmo and Apple Pay acceptance, terminal payments, next-day funding, split payouts, chargeback management and embedded reporting, delivered as a REST API with a white-labeled low-code component library. It is the youngest of the serious PayFac-as-a-service providers, and competes on three things rather than breadth.
Rainforest — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Recurly
A subscription management and recurring billing platform that runs plans, invoicing, dunning and churn recovery on top of a merchant's own payment gateways, without processing or settling the payments itself.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Subscription Billing & Merchant of Record
- RELATES_TO → Chargebee
Recurly is subscription and subscriber-lifecycle software. It manages plans, add-ons, trials, proration, coupons and usage; issues invoices; stores card credentials; and — the part the company is built around — runs dunning, smart retries and churn-recovery campaigns against payments that fail. It does not process anything. Recurly does not acquire, does not settle funds and is not the merchant of record.
Recurly — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Shopify Payments
Shopify's built-in card-acceptance product for Shopify stores, processed by Stripe under Shopify's own brand and merchant agreement.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shopify
Relations:
- PART_OF → Commerce & POS Platforms
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
Shopify Payments is not a payment processor. It is Shopify's own-brand wrapper over somebody else's processing. Shopify's US Shopify Payments Terms of Service name Stripe, Inc. — or its affiliate Bridge — and PayPal, Inc. as the payment processors that may act as agents for the underlying financial services providers. Shopify sets the price, holds the merchant contract, applies its own risk rules and provides the support. Stripe moves the transaction. This is a legitimate and common arrangement, and for most Shopify merchants it works well.
Shopify Payments — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Spreedly
A payments orchestration platform and PCI Level 1 card vault that stores payment credentials on the merchant's behalf and routes transactions across more than a hundred third-party payment services, without ever touching the money.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Orchestration & Payment Intelligence
Spreedly is infrastructure that sits in front of a merchant's payment providers rather than replacing any of them. Credentials are captured into Spreedly's vault, converted into Spreedly tokens, and presented to whichever gateway, acquirer or payment service the merchant chooses. The same stored credential works with more than one provider, and with a new one, without being collected again. The company is unusually direct about its own boundary. Its FAQ states: "We never touch your money.
Spreedly — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Square
The merchant business of Block, Inc.: a payment facilitator that bundles card acceptance with point-of-sale software, hardware, payroll, banking and lending for small and mid-sized sellers.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Block,_Inc.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Toast
Square is not a merchant account provider, and that distinction matters more than any comparison of published rates. Square is a payment facilitator — an aggregator. A seller signs up online, Square underwrites it as a sub-merchant beneath its own master merchant relationships with acquiring bank partners, and settles net proceeds to the seller's bank account or Square Balance. The seller never obtains a merchant account, never receives its own merchant identification number, and has no contract with an acquiring bank. Aggregator / payment facilitator.
Square — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Stax Payments
An Orlando-based payments company built around a subscription pricing model - a fixed monthly membership fee plus interchange at cost and a flat per-transaction charge, instead of a percentage markup - now also selling embedded payments to software platforms.
Relations:
- PART_OF → SMB Merchant Services
- RELATES_TO → Helcim
- RELATES_TO → Square
Stax Payments is two businesses under one brand. The first, Stax Pay, sells card acceptance to small and mid-sized merchants in the United States and Canada under a subscription pricing model. The second, Stax Connect, sells embedded payments to software companies that want to monetize payments inside their own products. The two share a processing stack and very little else, and a buyer should be clear which one they are actually talking to.
Stax Payments — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Stripe
A developer-first payment service provider and payment facilitator that lets businesses accept card and local payments online, in person, and on platforms through a single API.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stripe,_Inc.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
- RELATES_TO → Checkout.com
Stripe describes itself as financial infrastructure. That is vague enough to obscure the fact that matters most: on the standard product, Stripe is not software sitting in front of someone else's merchant account. Stripe is the counterparty. It signs the contract with the merchant, it underwrites the merchant, it decides whether the merchant keeps trading, and it holds the money on its way through. Payment facilitator (payfac). A company that holds a master merchant account with an acquiring bank and onboards businesses beneath it as sub-merchants.
Stripe — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
SumUp
A London-headquartered payments company that sells cheap handheld card readers, a point-of-sale range and a business account to very small merchants and sole traders across Europe, the Americas and beyond.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SumUp
Relations:
- PART_OF → SMB Merchant Services
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
SumUp sells card acceptance to the smallest end of the market: market traders, mobile hairdressers, tradespeople, small cafes, sole traders. The recognisable product is a pocket-sized battery-powered card reader, bought outright for a low one-off price and paired to a phone. Around it sits a broader stack — point-of-sale hardware and software, invoicing, an online store, payment links, gift cards, a business account with a Mastercard debit card, and merchant cash advances.
SumUp — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
The Clearing House
The Clearing House is a bank-owned payments utility that operates four core US clearing and settlement systems — the RTP instant payments network, CHIPS for large-value dollar transfers, the EPN private-sector ACH network, and image check exchange — for its owner and participant financial institutions.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Clearing_House_Payments_Company
Relations:
- PART_OF → Card Networks & Clearing
The Clearing House is a utility, not a vendor. It sells nothing to businesses, signs no merchants, holds no customer accounts and has no product a company can buy. It runs the plumbing that United States banks use to move money between themselves, and it is owned by 24 of the largest commercial banks operating in the country — among them Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, PNC, Truist, Capital One and BNY Mellon. Clearing and settlement.
The Clearing House — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Tipalti
A finance automation platform for accounts payable and global mass payouts, built for companies that have to pay large numbers of suppliers, creators, affiliates or partners across many countries and collect the right tax paperwork from all of them.
Relations:
- PART_OF → B2B, AP & AR Automation
- RELATES_TO → BILL
- RELATES_TO → Payoneer
Tipalti is a payables platform, but describing it that way understates what it is actually built to solve. The problem Tipalti addresses is not "how do we send money" — banks send money. It is "how do we collect, validate and keep current the identity, banking and tax details of ten thousand people in eighty countries, and then pay them without breaching sanctions law." Its distinguishing mechanic follows from that. Tipalti pushes payee onboarding onto the payee.
Tipalti — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Toast
A restaurant-only operating system that bundles Android point-of-sale hardware, restaurant software and integrated card processing, sold as one subscription-plus-processing package.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast,_Inc.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Commerce & POS Platforms
Toast is a restaurant operating system with a payments company inside it. The visible product is point-of-sale hardware and software — terminals, handhelds, kiosks, kitchen displays, online ordering, delivery, loyalty, payroll and team management, all built specifically for food service. The commercial engine underneath is card processing, which Toast reports as financial technology solutions and which produces the large majority of its revenue. That ordering matters. Toast is often described as a POS vendor that also handles payments.
Toast — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Visa
Visa is a global card network that operates the VisaNet authorisation, clearing and settlement system and sets the rules and default interchange rates for Visa-branded cards — it does not issue cards, lend money, or hold merchant accounts.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Card Networks & Clearing
- RELATES_TO → Mastercard
Visa is a network, not a processor, and the distinction determines who a business can actually negotiate with. Visa issues no cards, lends no money, underwrites no merchants, holds no merchant funds, and has no contract with the overwhelming majority of businesses displaying its logo. What it owns is VisaNet — the system that authorizes, clears and settles a card transaction between the bank that issued the card and the bank that signed up the merchant — plus the rulebook and default fee schedules governing how that system behaves. Four-party model.
Visa — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Waystar
A Nasdaq-listed healthcare payments software company that sits between US healthcare providers and payers, handling eligibility checks, claim submission, remittance, denial recovery and patient billing across roughly 7.5 billion transactions and $2.4 trillion of gross claims a year.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Healthcare Payments
Waystar is the software layer through which a US healthcare provider gets paid. It sits between providers and the insurers that pay them, moving the data that turns a treated patient into collected money: coverage checks before the visit, claims after it, remittances back from the payer, appeals when the payer says no, and a bill to the patient for whatever is left. The company reports roughly 7.5 billion transactions and over $2.4 trillion of gross claims a year, spanning approximately 60% of US patients and one in three US hospital discharges.
Waystar — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Worldpay
A global merchant acquirer and gateway formed from the 2018 merger of the US processor Vantiv and the UK's Worldpay, which has changed owners four times since then and became part of Global Payments in January 2026.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worldpay,_Inc.
Relations:
- PART_OF → Acquirers & Large Processors
- RELATES_TO → Adyen
- RELATES_TO → Stripe
- RELATES_TO → Checkout.com
Worldpay is an acquirer and a gateway in one product. It holds the merchant agreement, underwrites the merchant, authorises and captures card transactions, connects to the card networks and to local schemes and alternative payment methods, funds settlement, and carries the acquiring and chargeback exposure. Many companies do one half of that and buy the other. Worldpay does both, which is why enterprise merchants can run a checkout in a dozen countries without stitching together a gateway, an acquirer and a local method aggregator per market.
Worldpay — company profile | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Interchange
The fee an acquiring bank pays an issuing bank on every card transaction. It is set by the card network rather than negotiated between the parties, it is the largest single component of most merchants' card costs, and no processor can discount it.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interchange_fee
The fee an acquiring bank pays an issuing bank on every card transaction. It is set by the card network rather than negotiated between the parties, it is the largest single component of most merchants' card costs, and no processor can discount it.
Interchange | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payment Facilitator
An entity that holds a master merchant account with an acquirer and boards sub-merchants beneath it, taking on underwriting, monitoring and settlement obligations for them in exchange for controlling the merchant relationship.
An entity that holds a master merchant account with an acquirer and boards sub-merchants beneath it, taking on underwriting, monitoring and settlement obligations for them in exchange for controlling the merchant relationship.
Payment Facilitator | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Merchant of Record
The legal entity that appears on the cardholder's statement and carries liability for the sale, including tax obligations and chargebacks. In a merchant-of-record arrangement the platform, not the seller, is the party to the transaction.
The legal entity that appears on the cardholder's statement and carries liability for the sale, including tax obligations and chargebacks. In a merchant-of-record arrangement the platform, not the seller, is the party to the transaction.
Merchant of Record | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Acquiring Bank
The bank that holds a merchant's account, receives funds from the card networks on the merchant's behalf, and carries the credit risk if the merchant fails to deliver and cannot fund its own chargebacks.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acquiring_bank
The bank that holds a merchant's account, receives funds from the card networks on the merchant's behalf, and carries the credit risk if the merchant fails to deliver and cannot fund its own chargebacks.
Acquiring Bank | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Issuing Bank
The bank that issues a payment card to a cardholder, authorises or declines each transaction, and extends the credit or holds the deposit behind it.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issuing_bank
The bank that issues a payment card to a cardholder, authorises or declines each transaction, and extends the credit or holds the deposit behind it.
Issuing Bank | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payment Gateway
The software layer that transmits transaction data from a merchant's checkout to a processor, handling encryption, tokenisation and the authorisation response.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_gateway
The software layer that transmits transaction data from a merchant's checkout to a processor, handling encryption, tokenisation and the authorisation response.
Payment Gateway | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payment Orchestration
A routing layer above multiple payment providers that directs each transaction to a chosen processor according to rules on cost, authorisation rate, geography or redundancy.
A routing layer above multiple payment providers that directs each transaction to a chosen processor according to rules on cost, authorisation rate, geography or redundancy.
Payment Orchestration | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Embedded Payments
Payment acceptance built into a software platform so that the platform's customers transact without leaving it, with the platform taking a share of the payment economics.
Payment acceptance built into a software platform so that the platform's customers transact without leaving it, with the platform taking a share of the payment economics.
Embedded Payments | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Tokenisation
Replacing a payment card number with a surrogate value that has no exploitable meaning outside the system that issued it, so that card data never has to be stored by the merchant.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokenization_(data_security)
Replacing a payment card number with a surrogate value that has no exploitable meaning outside the system that issued it, so that card data never has to be stored by the merchant.
Tokenisation | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Chargeback
The forced reversal of a card transaction initiated by the cardholder's issuing bank, which returns the funds to the cardholder and debits the merchant while the dispute is examined.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chargeback
The forced reversal of a card transaction initiated by the cardholder's issuing bank, which returns the funds to the cardholder and debits the merchant while the dispute is examined.
Chargeback | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
PCI DSS
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard — the security requirements every organisation storing, processing or transmitting cardholder data must meet, administered by the PCI Security Standards Council.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_Card_Industry_Data_Security_Standard
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard — the security requirements every organisation storing, processing or transmitting cardholder data must meet, administered by the PCI Security Standards Council.
PCI DSS | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Money Transmitter Licence
A US state licence required to receive money for transmission on behalf of another party. Because it is issued state by state, nationwide coverage means roughly fifty separate licences and supervisory relationships.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_transmitter
A US state licence required to receive money for transmission on behalf of another party. Because it is issued state by state, nationwide coverage means roughly fifty separate licences and supervisory relationships.
Money Transmitter Licence | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Automated Clearing House
The US batch network for bank-account credits and debits, governed by Nacha rules. It is inexpensive and reversible, and it settles in batches rather than instantly.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_clearing_house
The US batch network for bank-account credits and debits, governed by Nacha rules. It is inexpensive and reversible, and it settles in batches rather than instantly.
Automated Clearing House | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Real-Time Payments (RTP)
The instant, irrevocable interbank payment network operated by The Clearing House, launched in 2017 and reaching the majority of US demand-deposit accounts.
The instant, irrevocable interbank payment network operated by The Clearing House, launched in 2017 and reaching the majority of US demand-deposit accounts.
Real-Time Payments (RTP) | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
FedNow
The Federal Reserve's instant payment service, launched in July 2023, providing round-the-clock interbank settlement as a public alternative to the privately operated RTP network.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow
The Federal Reserve's instant payment service, launched in July 2023, providing round-the-clock interbank settlement as a public alternative to the privately operated RTP network.
FedNow | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Merchant Category Code
A four-digit code classifying a merchant's line of business. It determines the interchange table applied to the merchant's transactions and whether some issuers will authorise them at all.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchant_category_code
A four-digit code classifying a merchant's line of business. It determines the interchange table applied to the merchant's transactions and whether some issuers will authorise them at all.
Merchant Category Code | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Level 3 Data
Line-item detail — part numbers, quantities, unit costs, freight and duty — submitted with a commercial card transaction to qualify it for lower interchange than a standard card-not-present sale.
Line-item detail — part numbers, quantities, unit costs, freight and duty — submitted with a commercial card transaction to qualify it for lower interchange than a standard card-not-present sale.
Level 3 Data | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Card Network
The scheme that connects acquirers and issuers, sets the operating rules and interchange rates, and clears transactions between them. Visa and Mastercard operate four-party networks; American Express and Discover historically operated three-party models.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Card_scheme
The scheme that connects acquirers and issuers, sets the operating rules and interchange rates, and clears transactions between them. Visa and Mastercard operate four-party networks; American Express and Discover historically operated three-party models.
Card Network | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Buy Now, Pay Later
Short-term instalment credit offered to a consumer at the point of checkout, funded by the provider and repaid over a fixed schedule, with the merchant paying a materially higher fee than on a card sale.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_now,_pay_later
Short-term instalment credit offered to a consumer at the point of checkout, funded by the provider and repaid over a fixed schedule, with the merchant paying a materially higher fee than on a card sale.
Buy Now, Pay Later | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Interchange-Plus Pricing
A pricing model that passes interchange and network assessments through at cost and adds a disclosed processor margin, so the merchant can see which portion of the fee is actually negotiable.
A pricing model that passes interchange and network assessments through at cost and adds a disclosed processor margin, so the merchant can see which portion of the fee is actually negotiable.
Interchange-Plus Pricing | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payment Service Provider
A provider that supplies merchants with acceptance under its own acquiring relationships, typically combining gateway, processing and settlement into a single contract.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payment_service_provider
A provider that supplies merchants with acceptance under its own acquiring relationships, typically combining gateway, processing and settlement into a single contract.
Payment Service Provider | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
3-D Secure
The cardholder authentication protocol used in card-not-present transactions, which shifts liability for fraudulent chargebacks from the merchant to the issuer when authentication succeeds.
Same as: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3-D_Secure
The cardholder authentication protocol used in card-not-present transactions, which shifts liability for fraudulent chargebacks from the merchant to the issuer when authentication succeeds.
3-D Secure | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Agentic Payments
Payments initiated by an autonomous software agent acting on a user's behalf, raising unsettled questions about mandate, authentication, dispute rights and who is liable when an agent transacts in error.
Payments initiated by an autonomous software agent acting on a user's behalf, raising unsettled questions about mandate, authentication, dispute rights and who is liable when an agent transacts in error.
Agentic Payments | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
High-Risk Merchant
A merchant classified by acquirers as carrying elevated chargeback, fraud, regulatory or reputational risk, which typically results in higher pricing, rolling reserves, and a shorter path to termination.
A merchant classified by acquirers as carrying elevated chargeback, fraud, regulatory or reputational risk, which typically results in higher pricing, rolling reserves, and a shorter path to termination.
High-Risk Merchant | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Processing & Acquiring
Companies that provide payment acceptance to merchants — acquirers, payment service providers, gateways, commerce platforms, high-risk specialists and cross-border acquirers.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Adyen
- INCLUDES → Airwallex
- INCLUDES → Authorize.net
- INCLUDES → Braintree
- INCLUDES → CardConnect
- INCLUDES → Chase Payment Solutions
- INCLUDES → Checkout.com
- INCLUDES → Clover
- INCLUDES → dLocal
- INCLUDES → Durango Merchant Services
- INCLUDES → EBANX
- INCLUDES → Elavon
Companies that provide payment acceptance to merchants — acquirers, payment service providers, gateways, commerce platforms, high-risk specialists and cross-border acquirers.
Processing & Acquiring | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payments Infrastructure & Enablement
Companies that supply the infrastructure behind payments — card networks, clearing, bank rails, embedded-payments platforms, orchestration, billing, fraud decisioning and vertical specialists — selling mostly to other businesses rather than to merchants.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Affirm
- INCLUDES → BILL
- INCLUDES → BVNK
- INCLUDES → Cass Information Systems
- INCLUDES → Cedar
- INCLUDES → Chargebee
- INCLUDES → Corpay
- INCLUDES → Dwolla
- INCLUDES → Finix
- INCLUDES → FIS
- INCLUDES → Forter
- INCLUDES → GoCardless
Companies that supply the infrastructure behind payments — card networks, clearing, bank rails, embedded-payments platforms, orchestration, billing, fraud decisioning and vertical specialists — selling mostly to other businesses rather than to merchants.
Payments Infrastructure & Enablement | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Acquirers & Large Processors
The scale players that own the merchant relationship end to end - underwriting, authorisation, clearing and settlement - usually through their own or an affiliated acquiring bank.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Chase Payment Solutions
- INCLUDES → Elavon
- INCLUDES → Fiserv
- INCLUDES → Global Payments
- INCLUDES → Heartland
- INCLUDES → North
- INCLUDES → Worldpay
The scale players that own the merchant relationship end to end - underwriting, authorisation, clearing and settlement - usually through their own or an affiliated acquiring bank.
Acquirers & Large Processors | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payment Service Providers & Aggregators
Providers that board merchants under their own master account, so onboarding is fast and pricing is simple, but the merchant does not hold a dedicated merchant account of its own.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Adyen
- INCLUDES → Braintree
- INCLUDES → Checkout.com
- INCLUDES → Nuvei
- INCLUDES → PayPal
- INCLUDES → Paysafe
- INCLUDES → Square
- INCLUDES → Stripe
Providers that board merchants under their own master account, so onboarding is fast and pricing is simple, but the merchant does not hold a dedicated merchant account of its own.
Payment Service Providers & Aggregators | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
SMB Merchant Services
Smaller providers competing on published pricing and service rather than scale, generally offering a true dedicated merchant account with interchange-plus or subscription pricing.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Gravity Payments
- INCLUDES → Helcim
- INCLUDES → Stax Payments
- INCLUDES → SumUp
Smaller providers competing on published pricing and service rather than scale, generally offering a true dedicated merchant account with interchange-plus or subscription pricing.
SMB Merchant Services | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Commerce & POS Platforms
Software platforms where payments are one module of a larger operating system for the business, and where leaving the payments product usually means leaving the platform.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Clover
- INCLUDES → Shopify Payments
- INCLUDES → Toast
Software platforms where payments are one module of a larger operating system for the business, and where leaving the payments product usually means leaving the platform.
Commerce & POS Platforms | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Payment Gateways
The authorisation layer connecting a merchant or a reseller to one or more processors, typically sold through ISOs and software vendors rather than direct to merchants.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Authorize.net
- INCLUDES → CardConnect
- INCLUDES → NMI
The authorisation layer connecting a merchant or a reseller to one or more processors, typically sold through ISOs and software vendors rather than direct to merchants.
Payment Gateways | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
High-Risk Specialists
Brokers and providers serving merchant categories that mainstream aggregators decline. The least transparent corner of the industry, and the one that most rewards reading the actual agreement.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Durango Merchant Services
- INCLUDES → PaymentCloud
Brokers and providers serving merchant categories that mainstream aggregators decline. The least transparent corner of the industry, and the one that most rewards reading the actual agreement.
High-Risk Specialists | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Cross-Border & Global Acquiring
Providers built around local acceptance, local payment methods and foreign exchange rather than around a single domestic card market.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Airwallex
- INCLUDES → dLocal
- INCLUDES → EBANX
- INCLUDES → Payoneer
Providers built around local acceptance, local payment methods and foreign exchange rather than around a single domestic card market.
Cross-Border & Global Acquiring | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Issuer Processing & Core Banking
Companies that sit on the issuing side of a transaction or run the bank systems behind it, selling to financial institutions rather than to merchants.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → FIS
Companies that sit on the issuing side of a transaction or run the bank systems behind it, selling to financial institutions rather than to merchants.
Issuer Processing & Core Banking | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Embedded Payments & PayFac-as-a-Service
Infrastructure that lets a software company monetise payments for its own customers without acquiring the licences, underwriting capability and risk exposure of a full payment facilitator.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Finix
- INCLUDES → Moov
- INCLUDES → Payrix
- INCLUDES → Rainforest
Infrastructure that lets a software company monetise payments for its own customers without acquiring the licences, underwriting capability and risk exposure of a full payment facilitator.
Embedded Payments & PayFac-as-a-Service | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Orchestration & Payment Intelligence
A routing and analytics layer above the processors, used by merchants running more than one provider to control authorisation rates, cost and redundancy.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Pagos
- INCLUDES → Spreedly
A routing and analytics layer above the processors, used by merchants running more than one provider to control authorisation rates, cost and redundancy.
Orchestration & Payment Intelligence | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Subscription Billing & Merchant of Record
Systems that manage the billing relationship rather than the card transaction - plans, proration, dunning, tax - and, in the merchant-of-record model, take on the sale itself.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Chargebee
- INCLUDES → Paddle
- INCLUDES → Recurly
Systems that manage the billing relationship rather than the card transaction - plans, proration, dunning, tax - and, in the merchant-of-record model, take on the sale itself.
Subscription Billing & Merchant of Record | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
B2B, AP & AR Automation
Payments between businesses rather than from consumers, where the hard part is the invoice, the approval workflow and the reconciliation rather than the authorisation.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → BILL
- INCLUDES → Corpay
- INCLUDES → Melio
- INCLUDES → Tipalti
Payments between businesses rather than from consumers, where the hard part is the invoice, the approval workflow and the reconciliation rather than the authorisation.
B2B, AP & AR Automation | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Card Networks & Clearing
The networks and clearing infrastructure themselves. They set the rules and the interchange, and they do not sell acceptance to merchants.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Mastercard
- INCLUDES → The Clearing House
- INCLUDES → Visa
The networks and clearing infrastructure themselves. They set the rules and the interchange, and they do not sell acceptance to merchants.
Card Networks & Clearing | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Bank Rails & Payment Operations
Providers of bank-account payments - ACH, direct debit, wires, real-time payments - and the operational tooling around reconciliation and ledgering.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Dwolla
- INCLUDES → GoCardless
- INCLUDES → Modern Treasury
Providers of bank-account payments - ACH, direct debit, wires, real-time payments - and the operational tooling around reconciliation and ledgering.
Bank Rails & Payment Operations | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Fraud & Risk
Decisioning platforms that sit in the authorisation path to approve or decline transactions, usually priced against the value they claim to protect.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Forter
Decisioning platforms that sit in the authorisation path to approve or decline transactions, usually priced against the value they claim to protect.
Fraud & Risk | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Healthcare Payments
Revenue-cycle and patient-payment platforms, where the payer mix, the explanation of benefits and HIPAA obligations make general-purpose processing a poor fit.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Cedar
- INCLUDES → Waystar
Revenue-cycle and patient-payment platforms, where the payer mix, the explanation of benefits and HIPAA obligations make general-purpose processing a poor fit.
Healthcare Payments | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Bill Payment & EBPP
Electronic bill presentment and payment for utilities, municipalities, insurers and other billers, where the customer relationship is recurring and non-discretionary.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → InvoiceCloud
- INCLUDES → Paymentus
Electronic bill presentment and payment for utilities, municipalities, insurers and other billers, where the customer relationship is recurring and non-discretionary.
Bill Payment & EBPP | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Stablecoin & Crypto Payments
Infrastructure for settling in stablecoins and moving between fiat and digital assets - the newest category here, and the one with the least settled regulation.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → BVNK
Infrastructure for settling in stablecoins and moving between fiat and digital assets - the newest category here, and the one with the least settled regulation.
Stablecoin & Crypto Payments | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Freight Audit & Payment
Specialists that audit carrier invoices against contracted rates before paying them, a category where the provider's economics often depend on float rather than fees.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Cass Information Systems
Specialists that audit carrier invoices against contracted rates before paying them, a category where the provider's economics often depend on float rather than fees.
Freight Audit & Payment | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com
Buy Now, Pay Later
Consumer instalment credit offered at checkout, where the merchant pays a materially higher fee in exchange for conversion and basket size.
Relations:
- INCLUDES → Affirm
- INCLUDES → Klarna
Consumer instalment credit offered at checkout, where the merchant pays a materially higher fee in exchange for conversion and basket size.
Buy Now, Pay Later | PaymentCompanies.com — published by PaymentCompanies.com