APIs and innovation help merchants with payments
Executive Summary
U.S. Bank created Elavon to tightly integrate banking and payments, giving merchants a single provider for acquiring, risk, settlement, equipment, and support across SMB through enterprise needs. Innovation is focused on simplifying onboarding and integration through modern, developer-friendly connectivity, while expanding value-added capabilities such as fully embedded point-of-sale lending (Avance) that helps merchants offer more ways to pay and reduce lost sales. Elavon positions stronger merchant-customer relationships as a byproduct of saving owners time, providing accessible human support, and delivering vertical-specific solutions (e.g., healthcare payment reminders) that improve communication and collections. The approach differs by segment: SMBs prioritize simplicity and packaged solutions, while enterprises require deeper customization, broader payment method and currency support, and higher-touch servicing. Competitive advantage is framed around “payments in the background,” faster access to funds (including same-day funding for U.S. Bank customers), and integrated tools that improve cash flow and drive incremental revenue.
Speakers
Key Takeaways
1. Unified Commerce Stack: Combine banking and payments to simplify operations for merchants, using a single provider to reduce vendor complexity and keep payments “in the background” while the business focuses on customers.
2. Frictionless Merchant Onboarding: Prioritize frictionless onboarding and integration by offering developer-first APIs and low/no-code options so merchants can launch payment capabilities faster with less technical lift.
3. Embedded Checkout Financing: Use embedded point-of-sale lending (e.g., Avance) to expand payment choice at checkout and reduce lost sales by giving customers real-time financing options for larger purchases.
4. Human-Led Merchant Support: Build stronger customer relationships by pairing scalable, human-led support (a person to call vs. chatbot-only service) with tools that give owners time back to run and grow the business.
5. Segment-Specific Payment Solutions: Tailor solutions by segment and vertical—keeping SMB setups simple while supporting enterprise complexity—and add value through capabilities like same-day access to funds to improve cash flow and competitiveness.
Key Quote
One of the main ways in which we want to help our merchants be successful is getting access to their funds faster, right, in improving and enhancing and optimizing their cash flow.
Webinar
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Integrated Payments Innovation: Banking + Acquiring, Embedded Finance, and Vertical Workflows
Merchant services growth is being reshaped by a simple reality: payments are no longer a back-office utility. They sit at the intersection of customer experience, data, and cash flow, shaping conversion, retention, and operating efficiency. For banks and processors, that shifts the mandate from “processing” to delivering integrated capabilities—banking + acquiring, embedded finance, and workflow-aware tools—that help merchants sell more, get paid faster, manage risk, and reduce operational overhead.
This is where vertical workflows become the differentiator. Generic payments products force merchants to adapt their business to the platform. Vertical-first providers design payments around how a business actually runs, aligning acceptance, payouts, financing, and compliance to industry-specific processes. As a result, merchants evaluate partners on outcomes and execution—fast onboarding, reliable support, and measurable performance—not on feature lists.
Integrated Payments Innovation Drivers
Innovation is being driven by the push to unify banking and payments into a single merchant proposition. When acquiring is aligned with banking rails—settlement, underwriting, risk, and servicing—providers remove handoffs that create delays, inconsistent experiences, and fragmented reporting. The value is clear across segments: enterprise merchants need reliability, scale, and governance across complex environments; small businesses need simplicity and confidence that the fundamentals work without constant oversight. Integration becomes the differentiator because it enables faster decisioning, cleaner reconciliation, and a consistent experience from onboarding through daily operations.
Modern onboarding and integration are also accelerating growth. “Developer-first” is now a commercial advantage, not only a technical preference. Merchants and software partners want to embed payments into POS, eCommerce, and vertical platforms with minimal effort. That requires APIs that are easy to implement, low-code/no-code options, and architectures that let merchants add capabilities without replatforming. Easier integration reduces time-to-revenue, lowers onboarding abandonment, and enables faster iteration on checkout and customer journeys. For providers, it also reduces cost-to-serve by limiting manual setup and support load, freeing investment for higher-value services.
Product innovation is increasingly shaped by “bundled optionality”: a core acquiring relationship with add-on capabilities merchants can adopt as they grow. A high-impact example is point-of-sale lending embedded directly into the payments stack. When financing is native rather than added through a loose partnership, merchants can offer flexible ways to pay without managing multiple vendors, contracts, and integrations. This drives higher conversion, larger basket sizes, and stronger customer satisfaction, while giving merchants a unified operational and reporting experience. Embedded capabilities also increase provider stickiness by linking payments performance to measurable revenue outcomes.
For small businesses, time is the scarcest resource and the strongest relationship lever. Owners often act as operator, finance lead, and decision-maker, with no bandwidth to become payments experts. Providers that combine robust products with accessible human support create a practical advantage: issues get resolved quickly, features are activated with confidence, and merchants stay focused on customers. Clear guidance, responsive troubleshooting, and proactive enablement turn payments from a recurring distraction into a dependable foundation. In a market optimized for self-serve, scalable technology paired with real support can be decisive for retention and long-term growth.
A vertical approach is most visible in industry-specific workflows. In healthcare, the payment moment is tied to scheduling, patient communication, and no-show reduction. Sending an appointment reminder that also prompts payment protects revenue that might otherwise be lost and improves the patient experience through timely, clear communication. The goal is not only collection; it is aligning payment actions with the service journey so practices reduce admin burden, improve predictability, and preserve patient relationships. The same pattern applies across verticals: the best payment experiences sit inside the workflows customers already use.
Customer expectations are also shifting toward choice in how they pay, especially for higher-ticket purchases. Businesses need to support multiple payment methods and real-time options that match consumer preferences, including financing at checkout. When financing is seamless, merchants reduce cart abandonment and in-store walkaways driven by budget constraints. That supports the outcome every operator prioritizes: saving sales that would otherwise be lost. Flexible payment options also strengthen loyalty because customers remember the business that made the purchase possible without friction.
Packaging and delivery must reflect segment realities because SMBs and enterprises operate under different constraints. SMBs prioritize simplicity: fewer systems, faster setup, and minimal operational overhead. Enterprises require deeper customization, broader integration flexibility, multi-currency and settlement support, and advanced billing models such as subscriptions and recurring payments. Even within online payments, one merchant may want a ready-to-use branded checkout page, while another needs direct connectivity to build a fully custom experience. Winning across segments requires both streamlined paths for speed and configurable paths for scale.
Growing merchant services through innovation means reducing friction and delivering measurable value. Banks and processors that unify banking and payments, modernize onboarding and integration, embed revenue-driving capabilities like financing, and support it with strong service build deeper merchant trust and longer-lasting relationships.
Advantage comes from connecting these capabilities into a cohesive system that improves cash flow and expands revenue opportunities. Faster access to funds, including same-day availability, helps businesses manage inventory, payroll, and growth investments by turning payments into a cash-flow optimization tool. Integrated options like point-of-sale lending unlock incremental demand by enabling purchases that might otherwise stall, expanding the merchant’s addressable customer base.
When payments are reliable, flexible, and embedded, they fade into the background so business owners can focus on operations while the payment stack improves conversion, retention, and financial agility. The merchants that win—across SMBs and enterprises—are the ones that translate better payment experiences into better customer experiences, which is where sustainable growth is earned.
