There is much more to picking an Acquirer than price

Thanks to the rapid rise in the number of payment companies (and sales agents) offering merchant services to Small and Medium sized Businesses (SMB) unsolicited offers of lower fees are common today, reducing acquirer retention rates. But SMBs are increasingly aware that they need to look beyond price if they are to satisfy heightened customer expectations and strategic business priorities. Capabilities previously reserved for larger merchants, like EPOS integration, alternative payment methods, and digital wallets, are now highly desired and valued. Additionally, enterprise merchants are seeking a partner who knows their vertical sector, supports the sector specific feature set, can speak their language and has already completed integration with the key business applications.

Payments Innovation can create competitive differentiation

When comparing acquirers merchants assess the level of payments innovation provided as this enables them to deliver a superior customer service and establish competitive differentiation. One example is Tap on Mobile, which for a SMB may be to reduce the cost of buying a payments acceptance device, but for an enterprise merchant is more likely to be to offer a queue-busting service, provide a customer self-checkout, or an endless product aisle service, as well as through assisted check-out for VIP customers.   

The larger the merchant size the greater the priority placed on an acquirer’s ability to deliver a reliable and high-performance service. Payments processing, particularly during peak season trading, has become a mission-critical business service, and merchants simply cannot afford any downtime, making high resilience a key evaluation factor. Most C-Suite executives prioritise avoiding lost sales, customer dissatisfaction, and brand damage over marginal savings on processing fees. While SMBs are starting to recognise the importance of service reliability, they often undervalue it until they experience a service outage firsthand.

Customer Support & Account Management

Another key point of acquirer differentiation is the quality of customer support provided, and this is increasingly a decision-making factor. Merchants are encouraged to compare support hours, the availability of telephone support, access to named support representatives, support team location, language capabilities and net promoter scores. Enterprise merchants understand the importance of receiving high-quality support and SMBs are starting to expect the same hyper-care provided to larger merchants.

Building upon customer support is the quality of account management provided. Large merchants have much more complex environments and sophisticated payment needs, require integration to a myriad of internal systems, and a large estate of stores and devices to be managed. This requires highly professional account management and project management to be provided. Having an experienced acquirer with the skills, resources, and track record to support large businesses and implementations is invaluable and justifies a slightly higher cost.

Digital Payment requirements vary by Merchant Size

Digital sales channels are critical for most merchants today as online transaction volumes continue to grow. SMBs are seeking an easy to implement hosted eCommerce payment page as part of a one-stop-shop acquiring service. Enterprise merchants however seek more advanced digital payment acceptance capabilities, additional digital channels, support for cross channel customer journeys, local payment methods, authorisation and authentication optimisation, a unified platform architecture, all delivered as part of a cutting edge omnichannel acceptance solution.

Flexibility & Value-Added Services

Most SMBs are looking for a single supplier for all their payment acceptance needs, whilst enterprise merchants seek the flexibility to pick and choose best-of-breed providers on a modular basis rather than being locked into a single full-stack arrangement. So, a leading omnichannel gateway provider that supports 3^rd party acquirers in addition to having an internal acquiring service offers tremendous value and choice.

Fast funds settlement periods are important for all sizes of merchants but particularly for SMBs for whom cashflow is critical. Next day settlement terms are increasingly requested.

Enterprise merchants seek a comprehensive suite of value-added-services (VAS) including: dynamic currency conversion, consolidated real-time reporting, payment orchestration, advanced fraud prevention, network tokens, SCA optimisation and a customer engagement marketing platform. When reviewing VAS capabilities merchants should ascertain if these are in-house developed, or white-labelled products. Higher value should be assigned to the former thanks to the improved level of data integration, faster time to market and improved support. Additionally, enterprise merchants operating internationally or within multinational corporations prioritise acquirers with local acquiring licenses to minimise transaction fees and a wide choice of alternative (local) payment methods.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) alignment

Enterprise merchants are attaching higher value to suppliers that match their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) priorities. This includes building trust with reliable, secure, innovative, and positive-impact solutions, ensuring respect for human rights and sustainable procurement practices, being a responsible employer, reducing environmental impact, and helping local communities through positive social initiatives. Large merchants should be asking potential suppliers for their CSR roadmap and how they are tracking progress towards net-zero carbon goals. SMB merchants are also starting to consider sustainability as a supplier selection criterion. Additionally, innovative capabilities like micro-donations to charities can serve as a helpful indicator to a payment provider’s CSR commitment.  

Thanks to payment acceptance now being a mission-critical service, selecting an acquirer is a critical decision for businesses of all sizes, but especially for large enterprises, where organisational and cultural alignment must be weighed alongside technical capabilities and financial terms. Choosing the right acquirer not only enhances revenue streams and reduces costs but also improves customer satisfaction, ensures operational stability, and supports long-term business growth. Enterprise merchants tend to prefer long-term strategic partners.

Unlike enterprise merchants, SMBs value the choice of contracting merchant services on either a blended or IC++ pricing model. They also seek the flexibility of renting or purchasing a payment device and value receiving hyper-care during on-boarding.

But irrespective of the merchant size multiple factors must be considered when selecting an acquirer and lowest cost should not necessarily win.