In the current landscape where payments processors want to maximize operations by minimizing costs, while expanding their business models, the lure of processing transactions directly may nudge other acquirers to seek special bank charters, too. 

As PYMNTS reported, in an exclusive, last week, Stripe’s application for a Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank (MALPB) charter has been accepted by the state of Georgia’s Department of Banking and Finance, opening the door to obtain direct membership in the U.S. with Visa and Mastercard and to process payments without a sponsoring bank (known as a BIN sponsor). 

Economics and the Expansion

That last point — the ability to process payments directly — allows the acquirer to have a more significant financial stake in processing debit and credit card transactions for merchants, as it saves money on the bank fees that would be paid to banking partners.  Stripe had noted to PYMNTS  that it would not look to displace banking relationships it has already forged.  

And it’s important to note that the MALPB is limited; should Stripe be granted approval by Georgia’s regulators, the license does not allow the payments processor to take deposits or branch out into other traditional banking activities. Georgia is the lone state that grants the MALPB.    

In further illumination of the strategy behind the applications, during the company’s fourth quarter 2023 earnings call held at the beginning of 2024, Fiserv CEO Frank Bisignano said, “There are clearly lots of questions about why Fiserv is applying for a bank license. … It’s a very specific purpose license that allows for sponsorship of merchant acquiring. Historically, you needed a bank that’s within the Visa and Mastercard rules.” 

He added, “Our ability to be able to have an institution for that sole purpose that will allow us, to be a sponsor for our own merchant acquiring in certain instances, will be valuable as we can control more of the outcome than we could before. It’s a very specific purpose, very clear to our banks. We’re not competing with them.”

Stripe’s efforts would be a way to expand the roster of banking relationships. Application materials on the Georgia Department’s website indicate that a decision will be rendered “within 60 days” from the time of application, which suggests some time in late May or in June.   

Much hinges on how and when the merchant acquirer can be granted membership into the payment networks such as Visa and Mastercard, which in turn means the acquirers can process, clear and settle those card transactions directly. Fiserv’s latest 10-K reveals that, in its income statement, the cost in 2023 (the latest full year reported) of processing and services stood at $5.4 billion, or 32% of its $15.6 billion in transaction-processing related revenues. 

The documentation that accompanies the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance’s application process and guidelines indicates that “risk capital” must be maintained, which per the language of the guidelines indicates that “the minimum risk capital requirement directly accounts for the MALPB’s actual chargeback experience and is designed to ensure maintenance of adequate capital to absorb loss at least to the level expected by a MALPB in relationship to its credit and fraud risk profile. A forward-looking element is incorporated into the minimum risk capital requirement” that is tied to payment volumes.

The post Will Fiserv and Stripe Pave Path for More Special Bank Charters? appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

And while the news Thursday (April 3) may have centered on a $575 million capital raise (and a $6.1 billion valuation) and the fact that the firm will reportedly not go public this year, management’s shareholder letter details the movement beyond its foundational account linking activities to provide an on-ramp to an expanding ecosystem of data-driven digital, personalized services and  products.

Momentum From New Businesses

The letter, penned by CEO Zach Perret, is largely qualitative in nature. And it should be noted that, because Plaid is not (and will not be) publicly traded, financial data is incomplete at best — though the trends are up and to the right, as the firm’s data network has underpinned growth in efforts to diversify revenue, through newer business lines such as alternative credit data, anti-fraud offerings and bank payments.

On that last front — pay-by-bank offerings — PYMNTS Intelligence has (in collaboration with Trustly) found that in the United States, 6.4% of consumers said they are already using pay by bank and 40% are at least somewhat interested in using the payment option. Interestingly, consumers earning $100,000 or more are among the most inclined to embrace pay by bank, as 42% saying they are intrigued or interested. We found that higher income consumers are among the earliest of adopters, as 9.4% are already paying by bank.

In an interview last year with Karen Webster, Brian Dammeir, head of payments for Plaid, said that “the user experience is what’s really changing,” particularly in the use case of paying bills. Traditional online bill pay requires users to recall or locate their account information, he said, a process prone to errors. With pay by bank, that friction is eliminated. Consumers can digitally authenticate their account information, making payments through a streamlined, biometric-driven interface.

“It’s about modernizing bank-based payments and putting them on par with other methods in terms of user experience,” he said.

The connectivity to broaden that usage is certainly in place, as Plaid has estimated in its letter Thursday that 1 in every 2 U.S. individuals have used Plaid. “We have a substantial and unique data asset. And our core business has consistently grown double digits year over year despite 2022 and 2023 being the worst slowdown in FinTech in the last two decades,” the CEO said in the letter. 

And drilling down a bit, new products stood at a greater than 20% contribution to annual recurring revenues, a segment that has been compounding at 93% annually.  Furthermore, Plaid has successfully broadened its client base to include major enterprise players such as Citi, H&R Block, Invitation Homes, and Rocket, as noted in Perret’s letter.

Longer-Term Strategy

Looking ahead, Perret’s letter strategically positions Plaid as a crucial infrastructure provider for finance. The company emphasizes its role in accelerating the “data revolution” within financial services, with the aim of empowering all participants to leverage data for enhanced customer acquisition, product personalization, risk management, and underwriting.

The company’s strategic priorities for 2025, as outlined by Perret, include accelerated investment in its new business lines and a greater emphasis on data science, machine learning, and AI to further enhance its data analytics capabilities across its solutions.

There’s a tantalizing line in the letter that hints at other growth metrics: “In 2024, we ended the year with [redacted for confidentiality].”

Elsewhere, according to the narrative offered by Perret, “Retail financial services is at a pivotal moment,” as “a small handful of industry giants have emerged with a vast technological and data advantage that they are using to accumulate market share by using data to intelligently target customers more effectively [and] cross-sell products. … The companies that will grow fastest in the next decade will be those who can best use data to their and their end users’ advantage.”  

For Plaid itself, “What started as an ‘API for your bank account’ quickly emerged as a critical component of thousands of new financial products built by FinTechs, banks, and enterprises alike,” Perret wrote, marked by 12,000 providers.

“The intelligent use of data will transform how financial services companies acquire customers, personalize products, manage risk, optimize underwriting, and more,” he added.

The post Plaid: Bank Account Connectivity Underpins ‘Data Revolution’ in Financial Services appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

The services are meant for acquirers, payment facilitators, retailers, marketplaces and shops, the company said in a Thursday (April 3) press release emailed to PYMNTS.

With Authorize.net 2.0, Visa has reimagined its Authorize.net by adding a streamlined user interface, artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, improved dashboards for management, and support for in-person card readers and tap to phone, according to the release. This enhanced service will be available in the U.S. in the second quarter and in additional countries in 2026.

Unified Checkout is a new experience that can be launched in a few hours and will orchestrate more than 25 card and alternative payment options, enabling merchants to accept more payment types and boost their eCommerce conversion rates with an intuitive checkout experience, the release said. It will be available in the U.S. and in pilot state in additional markets in the third quarter.

The ARIC Risk Hub uses adaptive AI to help protect acquirers and their merchants against fraud and financial crime by helping to identify risky transactions and build profiles around genuine customer activity, per the release. This service is available globally as of Thursday.

“Leveraging new technology to accept payments more efficiently and securely can be what sets a business apart in today’s rapidly digitalizing world,” Antony Cahill, president of value-added services at Visa, said in the release. “With our new services, we’re helping businesses harness data-driven insights, simplify the checkout experience and fight fraud more effectively than ever.”

Visa’s Value-Added Services include risk and security solutions, advisory and other services, issuing solutions and acceptance solutions, the company said in February.

Together, these offerings earned $8.8 billion in revenue for Visa in 2024, and the company sees them as a $520 billion potential annual revenue opportunity, it said in a presentation released in conjunction with its Visa Investor Day 2025.

“What we’ve essentially done is we’ve built a Visa payment stack, built on top of VisaNet and our network of networks, and on top of that, what we explain to investors is, we built Visa-as-a-Service,” Visa CEO Ryan McInerney told CNBC at the time in an interview.

The post Visa to Launch New Unified Checkout and Fraud Detection Solutions appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

When it comes to eCommerce interactions, sellers face the drive to streamline and reduce friction during the onboarding processes — and to digitize the interactions that happen after onboarding, including lending and payments.

In an interview with PYMNTS, Jordan Owen, head of merchant business banking at U.S. Bank’s wholly owned subsidiary Elavon, said broadening payments acceptance across credit and debit cards — and enabling firms to integrate digital wallets — levels the playing field between larger enterprises and small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

Through the partnership model, providers including Elavon, use developer-first APIs to help those firms — large or small — integrate new solutions on an as-needed basis. That bespoke approach underpins multinational retailers’ efforts to sell in dozens of countries and currencies, tapping a variety of markets, or an SMB’s single-market, dollar-denominated home base, Owen said.

“What it all comes down to is making sure that these merchants have the optimal setup to have payments work in the background — so that they can in turn go and run their businesses,” she said.

Elavon is one of only two payment processors that are wholly owned by a bank, which means that commercial clients accessing the full suite of services (combining U.S. Bank and Elavon’s offerings) can access funds the same day and/or embed point-of-sale lending that translates into reaching a broader market of customers that may not have been accessible otherwise.

The combination is the culmination of U.S. Bank’s efforts to combine financial services and payments under one roof, after acquiring Elavon’s predecessor, Nova Information Services.

Across the Range of Businesses

“We service everyone from major enterprise clients in the airline space all the way down to startup businesses,” Owen said.

That range of expertise is especially relevant given the movement of FinTechs and private equity-backed firms that have sought to extend banking solutions as part of their payment offerings.

“The point-of-sale lending solution is no-code or low-code and fully headless APIs … and that’s the kind of innovation we’re excited about,” she said.

The company has focused on several verticals that are being transformed by simplified payments and better communications.

Through its partnership with Rectangle Health, for example, Elavon enables clients to send reminders about appointments. Payment needs to be collected at the time of the visit, which improves the cash flow of providers. The company’s Practice Management Bridge integrates with a practice’s electronic medical records systems so that providers can track, manage, report and reconcile patient payment information.

In retail, setting SMBs up with real-time financing options can build consumer relationships as customers can buy large-ticket items as needed.

“The SMB’s key preference is to make things as simple as possible because they don’t have the people or processes to manage a number of complex and different relationships and systems,” Owen said.

To that end, Elavon can set up payment options through a pre-set checkout page or tailor the page to the merchants’ own preferences and markets, she said.

“Our goal is to be the payments expert,” Owen said, adding that the partnership approach “enables merchants to build stronger relationships with their customers — and giving them time back.”

The post APIs and Innovation Help Merchants Put Payments ‘in the Background’ appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

“Marketplaces are expanding beyond traditional eCommerce,” David Maret, senior partnership and customer success manager at Nuvei, told PYMNTS. “With that, payment expectations are evolving as well. There’s a bigger demand for faster payouts, streamlined seller onboarding, and, above all, local or multicurrency support.”

Marketplaces looking for a bigger piece of the pie by going global must navigate a labyrinth of regulatory requirements, fraud risks and cross-border payment complexities. In a world where consumer preferences vary significantly by region, marketplaces must cater to diverse payment demands. 

Maret said that Nuvei itself supports over 700 alternative payment methods (APMs), a number that continues to grow.

Businesses today aren’t just adding more payment methods — they’re optimizing them. The right mix of APMs isn’t just about offering choices; it’s about maximizing acceptance, minimizing fraud, and ensuring compliance across jurisdictions, Maret said, adding that’s why Nuvei focuses on enabling localized payment solutions that align with how customers prefer to pay in each region.

Navigating Complexity

Against this global backdrop, payment security is no longer just about encryption and tokenization. Ensuring effective and secure payments requires solutions like advanced artificial intelligence (AI) fraud detection and regulatory compliance tailored to each jurisdiction.

As regulatory environments shift, companies must navigate country-specific laws that can impact payment operations. Payment providers that offer built-in compliance can help marketplaces scale while reducing regulatory risks.

“At Nuvei, we take a compliance-first approach, ensuring that our solutions cover KYB [know your business] and KYC [know your customer] requirements, onboarding procedures, payout structures and regulatory risk management,” Maret said.

As more marketplaces expand globally, compliance challenges are intensifying — from adapting to country-specific regulations to managing fraud risks and payout structures. Without the right compliance, scaling across regions can become a major roadblock.

“In the past, you would buy a new bike from a Dutch seller through a Dutch marketplace,” Maret said. “Now, platforms like Buycycle allow a seller in Austria to ship to a customer in the Netherlands, effectively erasing borders [and significantly increasing marketplace inventory]”

Marketplaces benefit from globalization in multiple ways. Increased supply leads to better pricing and wider selection, while regional price differences allow businesses to maximize margins. However, expanding internationally requires sophisticated payment solutions that can handle different currencies, tax structures and compliance regulations.

“Compliance is a major challenge for many marketplaces,” Maret said, adding that with businesses focusing primarily on sales and customer acquisition, regulatory requirements can often take a back seat.

“Our acquisition of Payout in October, now rebranded as Nuvei for Platforms, has strengthened our ability to provide expert guidance on complex payment structures tailored for marketplace growth,” he said.

$20 Trillion Opportunity

Digital payments are set to reach an estimated $20 trillion globally this year, a staggering number that underscores the significance of innovation in the payments space. Offering APMs is just one piece of the puzzle for marketplaces. By implementing AI and data-driven strategies, marketplaces can streamline user experiences, reduce fraud and improve compliance. With 84% of eCommerce businesses placing AI as their top priority, its role in optimizing operations and securing transactions has never been more critical.

“AI touches so many elements,” Maret said. “From better understanding reporting insights to optimizing user preferences and regulatory compliance, AI plays a crucial role in modern payment systems.”

The future of marketplaces is linked to the evolution of payment systems. Consumers demand seamless, flexible and secure transactions, and businesses must adapt to stay ahead.

“Marketplaces that leverage the right payment solutions and innovations will be the ones that scale successfully, optimize conversions and capitalize on the $20 trillion digital payments opportunity ahead,” Maret said.

The post Marketplaces Go Global in Pursuit of $20 Trillion Payments Opportunity appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Growing consumer demand for fixed installment plans when they make a purchase is fueling hot competition among FinTechs and traditional banks, not just for consumer wallets but also for ties with merchants. The pay later ecosystem is rapidly evolving to change how Americans shop and merchants sell goods and services.

In “Pay Later Revolution: Redefining the Credit Economy,” a PYMNTS Intelligence special report, we survey the evolution of credit and unpack the business and revenue models driving the highly competitive and rapidly evolving consumer credit landscape. One key insight: Higher-income consumers increasingly use BNPL not out of necessity but out of the convenience it affords in managing personal cash flows.

Inside “Pay Later Revolution: Redefining the Credit Economy”:

• More than 1 in 2, or 51.2%, of adult American consumers using BNPL do so out of financial necessity — slightly more than do so out of convenience (46.1%). BNPL is no longer the exclusive provenance of shoppers with crimped pocketbooks.
• Consumers using BNPL out of necessity are most likely age 25 to 34. Slightly more than 1 in 5, or 20.7%, in that group, taps the product to pay their basic bills.
• Convenience users of BNPL are most likely to be 65 or older and comprise 28% of all BNPL users of all ages. Interestingly, 61% of BNPL users who make at least $100,000 a year use the credit option for its convenience when managing their cash flow or maximizing their rewards.
• Hybrid business models that shift some BNPL fees to consumers are gaining popularity. The BNPL industry began with merchants offering the service to consumers free of fees and interest as long as they paid on time. Now, the tide is shifting as merchants push back against those fees.

Download the report to learn more about the Pay Later industry.

The post How Pay Later Options Are Redefining Consumer Spending — an Expert Look at What’s Next appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

“It’s a journey that we’re undertaking,” he said, “and not only from the standpoint of a financial institution but in the FinTech arena as well. It’s a joint journey toward building out our capabilities and enhancing or even redesigning our infrastructures … to get out of the thought process of ‘9 to 5’ and to operate on a 24/7 wavelength.”

Looking at the Long Term

Over the long term, he said, real-time payments will become commonplace, reflecting the ways in which we exchange information — and the ever speedier ways in which we live.

For enterprises working with Bank of America, said Stanton, the benefits of real-time payments lie in greater control over when their beneficiary is paid — and how they’re paid, which in turn means that the sender can better manage their working capital.

Along with the growth in pay-to-card and pay-by-bank use cases, Stanton was quick to note that “RTP is not a solution looking for a problem,” which is a mindset the bank seeks to bring to its clients, especially when they examine the ways and means that they are going to have to reconfigure their workflows and back-end processes, with artificial intelligence (AI) in the mix to provide additional lines of defense in anti-money laundering (AML) and transaction monitoring.

“The workflow,” he said, “is going to need to be modified not only to transact and to send information simultaneously, but also to receive and digest the information that is being provided in order to truly benefit from RTP’s transparency and speed.”

Choosing Among the Use Cases

There must also be the recognition that not all transactions need to be real time, he said, and partnering with a financial institution — such as Bank of America — can help firms determine the applicability of real-time payments for some use cases, but not others. Pay by bank, to name but one “type” of real-time payment, can be embedded at the point of sale or within an eCommerce experience, said Stanton, and pay to card can improve B2C interactions such as with the gig economy.

“From a cross-border standpoint,” he said, payments “are inundated with friction. What we’re seeing in the global economy is that the user experience is paramount, and the RTP paves the way for additional value.” The same is true for cross-border commercial payments, where costs are streamlined and all parties know exactly where and when payments have been sent — and when they’ll arrive and settle.

That level of transparency fosters loyalty between buyers and suppliers and helps them navigate foreign exchange (FX) volatility, said Stanton. Bank of America, for its part, has integrated its FX solutions into the real-time payments value chain to help improve supply chain dynamics. Real-time payments are already transforming tech, media and telecom companies, remittance providers and eCommerce as they digitize payouts.

“There’s a level of instant gratification,” he said, that is desired by the bank’s clients and their own end customers, “and so we have to be there to meet that demand.”

The post Bank of America Says Real-Time Payments Connect Businesses to Working Capital appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

But beneath developments like artificial intelligence and real-time payments, bill presentment has quietly emerged as a critical component of financial institutions’ and billers’ strategies, playing an essential role in enhancing customer experience, streamlining operations and driving revenue growth.

“When you look at what bill presentment can do, it really can help financial institutions, their clients and direct clients be able to collect faster,” Norman Marraccini, senior vice president of products and services at FIS, told PYMNTS.

For years, bill presentment was an afterthought — a static process where customers received a paper invoice or a simple PDF via email. However, as digital transformation has accelerated, so too has the expectation for interactive, real-time and personalized billing experiences.

The dominance of biller-direct models is growing, as 75% of customers prefer to manage and pay their bills in a single location, Marraccini said.

“Making it very user-friendly and beneficial for clients and their customers is key,” he said.

Today, bill presentment is a strategic touch point that can influence customer satisfaction, reduce churn and unlock new business models.

Bill Presentment’s Hidden Key to Payments Innovation

The move toward integrated ecosystems that unify bill pay and biller-direct platforms has significant implications for businesses of all sizes, Marraccini said. Small business owners, for example, can manage invoices, pay bills and track payments all in one place.

“If you can imagine a bank morphing its retail platform to not only include biller-direct but also retail bill payments, you create an ecosystem where businesses can take real-time payments, validate billing accounts and optimize accounts receivable,” he said.

“Think about taking both [retail bill payments and biller-direct] and putting it into one place,” he added. “The opportunities for banks and businesses to interact with customers in new ways increase dramatically.”

By offering a single access point for bill presentment and payment, financial institutions can increase “eyeball time” with customers — a term Marraccini used to describe the importance of maintaining engagement through digital platforms. More engagement can also mean more opportunities to upsell services and provide value-added insights based on customer behavior.

Digital bill presentment platforms also generate vast amounts of valuable data thanks to electronic invoice presentment and payment (EIPP), another innovation shaping the future of bill presentment. By digitizing invoicing and payment processes, EIPP is empowering chief financial officers with deeper financial insights and more efficient receivables management.

“When invoicing and billing are boarded on a digital platform, the majority of business intelligence can be gleaned from customer data,” Marraccini said. “With an EIPP system, you’re blending invoicing, payments and payment history, allowing for greater visibility into customer trends and cash flow management.”

“Data is king,” he added. “With the data we provide back to our clients, institutions can view invoice history, payment trends and cash flow projections in real time … Think about how easy it becomes for businesses and their customers when everything — viewing invoices, making payments, tracking receivables — is available in one centralized portal.”

Solving the Integration Challenge

An advantage of digital bill presentment is its ability to reduce friction in the payment lifecycle.

“You’re looking at an [accounts payable (AP)] department that handles multiple payment receivable systems today,” Marraccini said. “If you can take steps away from that process through automation, it allows for a consolidated view of payments and reduces manual intervention.”

For businesses looking to implement advanced bill presentment solutions, however, integration with existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems can remain a key challenge.

“Our goal at FIS is to focus on the major ERP systems that handle the majority of invoicing updates for payments and procurement,” Marraccini said. “We tie into those systems via API, ensuring a seamless experience for our partners.”

Ultimately, the success of digital bill presentment hinges on customer experience. Today’s consumers expect seamless, intuitive digital interactions, much like the frictionless experience of eCommerce platforms such as Amazon, he said.

“Paying bills is boring, right?” Marraccini said. “But what can I do to make it interactive for that client? How can I show them information they might not be looking at when they just receive a paper invoice?”

For FIS, the vision is clear, he said.

“The more opportunities we create for our clients to engage with their customers in a one-stop digital portal, the better positioned they will be to drive revenue, improve cash flow and deliver exceptional service,” Marraccini said.

For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B Newsletter.

The post Turning Digital Bill Presentment Into the Next Consumer Touchpoint appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

Merchants, payment service providers (PSPs) and issuers must align their strategies to prioritize both security and user experience, and PYMNTS hears from Surin Fernando, senior vice president, customer solutions, Australasia at Mastercard, and Guida Sousa, senior vice president, product management at Mastercard, about why payments innovators should pay particular attention to Brazil and Australia.

“Brazil is a very digital-savvy market, and merchants are acutely aware that frictionless experiences drive sales,” Sousa said, noting that consumers demand immediacy, security and seamless experiences.

One of the core innovations in Brazil’s checkout transformation is network tokenization.

“We are replacing the traditional 16-digit card number with a token that is useless to fraudsters,” Sousa added. “This ensures both security and ease of checkout, which aligns with global trends.”

Moreover, Brazil is adopting biometric authentication.

“Merchants are embracing technologies that offer both security and frictionless experiences,” Sousa said. “We’re seeing initiatives like payment passkeys gaining traction, and merchants are keen to implement them after witnessing their benefits.”

Still, she added that many Brazilian merchants feel as they are unable to request technical features from their PSPs, which indicates a significant gap in communication. Despite this gap, over 50% of merchants proactively requested technical upgrades, signaling that larger retailers with deeper knowledge of the payments ecosystem are pushing for innovations.

Mastercard is stepping in to bridge the gap between merchants and PSPs, ensuring that the demand for seamless checkout experiences is met with responsive solutions.

The Role of PSPs and Industry Collaboration

While it exists in a separate hemisphere, Australia mirrors Brazil in its push for digital payment advancements but faces its own unique challenges, particularly around security.

Fernando said the country has one of the highest rates of contactless payments globally, with 99% of transactions being contactless and 70% happening on mobile devices. However, the online checkout experience remains inconsistent, creating friction for both consumers and merchants.

“Our online experience is still broken in many ways,” Fernando said. “We’re seeing high demand for one-click checkout, but what really surprised me was the growing interest in biometric authentication. With only 1 in 10 transactions authenticated in Australia, we have a billion-dollar card fraud problem that needs urgent attention.”

He emphasized the role of PSPs in solving this issue.

“While more than 52% of merchants didn’t engage with their PSPs on technology requests, it’s clear that those who did saw significant improvements in approval rates and fraud mitigation,” he said. “We need to create a system where merchants feel empowered to ask for these capabilities.”

One of the major advancements in Australia is the integration of Click to Pay, a streamlined checkout experience that eliminates the need for manual entry and increases conversion rates.

“We’ve been working with issuers to auto-enable customers into Click to Pay, which dramatically improves adoption,” Fernando said. “This, combined with network tokenization and biometric authentication, forms the holy trinity of secure, seamless checkout.”

Looking Ahead to the Future of Checkout Innovation

Both Sousa and Fernando agreed that PSPs play a crucial role in the adoption of new payment technologies, but they need better education on their value.

“We need to articulate the ‘why’ — why network tokenization reduces fraud, why Click to Pay increases conversion, and why biometric authentication is the future,” said Fernando. “Our vision is clear: 100% tokenized transactions, 100% authentication and the elimination of manual card entry by 2030.”

“The industry has to come together to make this happen,” Sousa said. “Just as we collectively deployed contactless technology a few years ago, we must now rally around one-click checkout, tokenization and passkeys.”

As consumer expectations continue to evolve, merchants, PSPs and issuers must align their strategies to prioritize both security and user experience. Ultimately, whether in Brazil, Australia or elsewhere, the future of checkout is fast, frictionless and fortified against fraud. And if Mastercard’s latest initiatives are any indication, the payments industry is well on its way to achieving that future.

The post Australia and Brazil’s Shared Vision for the Future of Checkout appeared first on PYMNTS.com.

“There has definitely been an uptick in B2B-type platforms that are looking to add additional services to their product offering,” Justin Downey, vice president of product at Maverick, told PYMNTS.

From eCommerce and retail to healthcare and education, he said, businesses are leveraging these technologies to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations and open new revenue streams.

For many organizations, by integrating payment capabilities into core platforms, they are able to enhance data insights, improve customer experiences and boost platform stickiness.

Downey highlighted the importance of application programming interfaces (APIs) in driving the embedded FinTech trend, noting: “There’s been a lot of development with third parties and ease of integration through APIs. Adding this payment piece to an existing offering just makes sense.”

For software developers and enterprise strategists, he said, understanding how to evaluate full stack FinTech providers is vital to making informed technology investments.

As the world of payments continues to evolve, the importance of embedded FinTech and inclusive payment solutions will grow. With the right strategy, businesses can not only streamline their payment processes but also create new opportunities for growth and innovation.

Key Components

Embedded FinTech refers to the integration of financial services into nonfinancial platforms, allowing businesses to offer banking, payments, lending or insurance services directly within their existing ecosystems.

While the goal of embedded FinTech is to provide a seamless user experience, Downey stressed that achieving this simplicity often requires navigating complex back-end processes. One common pitfall, he said, is underestimating the challenges of security and regulatory compliance.

“Security is going to be a big one, right? Because you’re handling sensitive data,” Downey said. “We’ve seen an uptick in regulatory compliance … choosing the right partner to connect with and one that’s really an expert on the payment experience can keep you updated with compliance.”

FinTech solutions operate in a highly regulated space, and it’s becoming increasingly crucial that embedded FinTech partners can manage compliance burdens, particularly those that meet rigorous standards like PCI compliance and SOC 2 audits. Such credentials ensure that sensitive card information is handled securely.

Beyond security, customization is a cornerstone of effective embedded FinTech solutions, while a scalable solution is equally important in allowing the system to grow alongside the business.

“If you’re taking the time and spending the money to develop to a payment system, you want your core offering and the user experience to stay the same. It should flow, it should be seamless,” Downey said, emphasizing the importance of ensuring any payment experience remains customizable, cohesive and branded.

For Downey, the ultimate goal is clear: “You want to prevent the fraudsters, but you want the good payments to travel through, and you want the experience to look like it’s all the same system.”

Future of Embedded FinTech

Looking forward, Downey predicted further integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into embedded FinTech solutions.

“We talk a lot about AI … it’s automating certain tasks,” he said. “Finding out where AI can support as far as error handling, for example, if we’re doing an integration, an API connection from one system to communicate with another, how can AI be involved with that?”

Yet despite the buzz around embedded FinTech, Downey believes there is still a need for education in the market. He sees significant opportunities for collaboration between payment specialists and software providers to create mutually beneficial solutions.

“Both of these two parties can participate in the revenue. And I think it makes a lot of sense for them to connect together and really kind of enhance both of their offerings,” he said.

At Maverick, Downey’s own focus is on building the back-end infrastructure that supports these innovations.

“Our part is acting as a back-end operational system,” he said. Whether businesses need white-label systems, platforms to resell payments or more integrated approaches, Maverick aims to provide the robust “rails” that enable seamless, secure payment experiences.

The post How Embedded FinTech Is Becoming B2B’s Competitive Edge appeared first on PYMNTS.com.