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Landing a coveted merchant account is a top goal for many banks and payment technology firms, but banks may be at a disadvantage. It can cost up to 2.3 times more, on average $496, for a financial institution to onboard a merchant for payment services, as a paytech may spend $214 to do that, says a new report from advisory firm Capgemini Research Institute.
Released Thursday, the report, “World Payments Report 2026, also says it may take a bank seven days to complete the onboarding, while a paytech may do it in as little as 60 minutes. Capgemini defines paytechs as companies that develop and provide solutions for processing payments, including mobile payments, contactless transactions, digital wallets, and payment gateways. It includes payment-service providers, payment facilitators, and independent software vendors.
The banks’ onboarding issues may not be news to them. Capgemini found that, while 69% of merchants demand fast and seamless onboarding, only 13% of banking executives believe they can fully deliver that service. The report surveyed 2,600 merchants, plus 420 payment executives split evenly between banks and paytech companies across the globe, including in the United States.
Onboarding is not the only distinguishing feature. Paytech firms tend to be more innovative, with 70% of them deploying payment orchestration, compared with 47% of banks.
“As many banks focus on the card-issuing business over merchant acquisition, gaps have emerged in servicing merchants, enabling agile, digital-first competitors to win market share,” Jeroen Hölscher, Capgemini global head of payment services, says in a statement.
Merchants are adapting and demand seamless, omnichannel, and what Capgemini calls intelligent, payment solutions.
“Constrained by legacy systems, margin compression, and rising fraud risks, many [banks] have shifted away from merchant acquiring toward issuing, which offers higher margins and cross-selling potential,” the report says. “This shift has created space for tech-first players like Adyen, Toast, and Stripe, who now offer full-stack, embedded solutions that extend beyond payments to include business accounts, lending, and operational tools. To stay relevant, banks must modernize their merchant-servicing platforms, embrace real-time payments, and deliver value-added services (VAS) that deepen merchant relationships and unlock new revenue streams.”
Capgemini suggests banks can gain a better position within merchant services by bringing clarity to their intent and making quicker moves to meet merchants, ensuring they are using the most appropriate business model, have the digital capabilities merchants want, build on the trust and value they have developed, and put scale to better use with value-added services.
