PSP (payment service provider)

A payment service provider sits between the merchant and acquiring banks or payment schemes. Instead of signing with each bank, the merchant integrates one provider and gets cards, local methods, payouts and reporting through it.

PSPs differ in the countries and methods they support, the niches they accept, document requirements and pricing. For high-risk businesses the choice is especially narrow: many providers do not onboard such projects.

Merchants often run two or three PSPs at once to avoid depending on one partner and to route payments where approval is higher.

Local payment methods for online businesses →