Why Visa should be your vendor for payments

Every other year, Forrester publishes its Forrester Wave™: Merchant Payment Providers report that identifies top vendors in the industry that can help merchants better structure their business’ and payments’ strategies to fit their specific needs, including retail, grocery, and everything in between. In this 2024 report, Forrester used a 24-criterion evaluation of the top 13 merchant payment providers, identifying the most significant vendors and scoring them from “Challengers” up to “Leaders”. Forrester evaluated current offerings such as authentication, omnichannel payments, fraud and risk, and integrations, to name a few, as well as the vendors’ strategies (i.e., vision, innovation, partner ecosystem, etc.) and market presence. Here is what they found.

Merchants have many choices to make when it comes to partnering with a merchant payment provider, and those choices aren’t only focused on who can provide the right capabilities at the right time. They’re seeking more differentiation and less complexity. Today, merchants are looking for a merchant payment provider that builds new and better payment experiences with added flexibility and abilities to tailor strategies according to their needs. When faced with growing demands, such as improving the customer experience, increasing profitability, and enhancing growth, merchants require their payment provider to pivot and create unique experiences that will leave their customers wanting and coming back for more.

As a merchant, once you determine what capabilities you need and how you need them deployed, finding the payment provider that can support that specific payment experience should be top priority. Important things to consider should be:

• Match your pace and speed. Carefully assess your chosen vendor’s adoption of ongoing industry innovation and regulatory changes to ensure they can move at a pace that matches your strategy. While consumers expect instant payments and connection points, it’s always important to ensure your payment provider understands the complicated compliance and regulatory issues around your specific acceptance needs.
  
  
• Manage and process payment data in a manner that suits your needs. Review how your chosen vendor approaches data management and enrichment to better capitalize on insights for your business. Payments are inherently data rich, so the better insights you can garner from your provider is usually better. However, they must be delivered in an orchestrated way to help you optimize your business.
  
  
• Allow you to expand and customize according to your growth strategy. Having a payment provider that can pivot with your business can make all the difference, including options for enabling unified commerce experiences and universal connectivity to the processors and acquirers of your choice.

Noted for our global footprint, brand recognition, and history of enabling online payment processing for eCommerce merchants, we believe Visa Acceptance Solutions stood out in Forrester’s evaluation for its Cybersource offering that provides global connectivity and reach that merchants need to expand their businesses in the modern age of digital payments. The report recognized Visa Acceptance Solutions’ vision and roadmap for its overarching merchant, fintech, and banking payment solutions as clear, well-defined, and well-aligned with Cybersource’s unique value proposition. Furthermore, Visa Acceptance Solutions was recognized for its acquirer and network agnosticism that takes full advantage of Visa’s ownership and assets, thus we believe it increases its attractiveness to merchants and partners alike. Likewise, Cybersource’s unique partnerships, combined with its recently launched partner directory, upholds Visa’s forward movement into a strong position within the merchant payment provider landscape.

As merchants’ needs are shifting to a renewed focus on customer experience, profitability, and identifiable growth, we believe they need a flexible partner like Visa Acceptance Solutions that can help them grow and grow with them. Not only is Visa Acceptance Solutions² and Cybersource a good fit for eCommerce businesses in search of global payment acceptance solutions, but we’re here to provide delightful experiences to customers, no matter where or how they shop.