For a very long time, every company looked at payments as a necessary evil. You'd pay the processing fee and that was that. But slowly there was a realization that managing more of the payment journey could turn into a massive profit center.
The fundamental shift from viewing payments as a cost center to embracing them as a profit engine represents one of the most significant business model evolutions in North America. From healthcare to hospitality, niche platforms are becoming payment providers, discovering that payment processing can be a primary revenue driver.
“The competitive positioning is clear: if a competitor moves into payments while you don't, you risk getting left behind.”
-Sean Mathe, Sr. Director, Integration & ISV Services
Platforms are embedding payments into their software to monetize transactions, increase stickiness, and offer value-added services like financing and loyalty.
MindBody exemplifies this transformation perfectly. As an ISV providing comprehensive business management software for spas, they generate most of their revenue from payment processing and built their entire business model around payments monetization.
This trend extends far beyond obvious candidates. Epic, the medical records giant, is evolving from simple payment routing to capturing more of the payment economics. Even niche ISVs, like those supporting dog grooming services, are discovering that managing the entire payment workflow—from scheduling to SEO to payment collection—creates a sustainable competitive advantage.
The competitive implications are stark: businesses that fail to embrace payments as a profit center risk being outpaced by their competitors who can reinvest payment revenues into product development and market expansion. This isn't limited to specific industries—the pattern emerges across mature business services, accounting platforms, and ERP systems.
Being successful at this requires moving beyond simple payment acceptance toward comprehensive payment orchestration. Companies are leveraging modular approaches to add capabilities like open banking, loyalty programs, and advanced analytics without rebuilding their core systems.
The key is recognizing that, in today's economy, controlling the payment experience is about both convenience and capturing the financial upside that can fund future growth and innovation.
Visa Intelligent Authorization (VIA) uses advanced AI and machine learning to improve authorization rates for more approvals of legitimate transactions. Flexible and scheme-agnostic, VIA allows acquirers to easily integrate with multiple global and domestic payment schemes—driving both efficiency and revenue growth as a strategic profit center for businesses.
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