How Top U.S. Acquirers Ranking Changed Following Acquisitions

There’s a new top U.S. merchant acquirer. Global Payments Inc., with an estimated $2.8 trillion in 2025 U.S. processing volume, has moved into the top spot in the 2026 TSG  Directory of U.S. Merchant Acquirers, unseating JPMorgan Chase & Co., which had held the top rank since at least the 2023 edition.

JPMorgan Chase, with $2.5 trillion in estimated processing volume, holds the second spot, followed by Fiserv at $2.2 trillion.

Global’s rise to first place stems primarily from its acquisition of Worldpay, says Alex Ferguson, product manager at Omaha, Neb.-based TSG, a payments advisory.  Worldpay held the number-three spot in the 2025 TSG directory with an estimated volume, for 2024, of $1.9 trillion. Global closed on its $24.5 billion acquisition of Worldpay in January.

Filling out the top 10 are Stripe, at $902.5 billion; Wells Fargo, $675 billion; PayPal, $585 billion; Elavon, the acquiring unit of U.S. Bank, at $442 billion; Bank of America, $428.7 billion; Adyen, $316 billion; and Block, at $200.2 billion.

With Worldpay no longer standing as a separate entry, Stripe jumped from the seventh position in 2025 to fourth. Elavon went from ninth to seventh, and Adyen advanced from 10^th to ninth. Block is a new member of the top 10. The Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and PayPal rankings are unchanged.

Overall, the top 10 processed almost $11 trillion in transactions in 2025, up from $10.7 trillion in 2024.

Diversification of sales channels is certainly helping these large acquirers, but they’re not alone. That trend extends farther into the broader base of acquirers, Ferguson says.

“Eighty-two percent of the top-50 listed acquirers were identified as selling through the integrated/independent software vendor channel versus 72% last year,” Ferguson tells Digital Transactions News in an email.

“Providers like Stripe and Toast that focus almost exclusively on [software-as-a-service] and ISV-enabled merchants continue to be the largest [year-over-year] growers of nominal payment volume. Stripe alone will very likely eclipse $1trillion in U.S. sourced payment volume in 2026,” he says.

Not all acquirers, however, have the vast resources of these larger ones. Smaller independent sales organizations, which once were quick adopters of zero-cost processing and surcharging programs, now find the rest of the industry has caught up, and offerings are similar across most providers, Ferguson says.

“The largest acquirers continue to become comprehensive platforms for merchants of all shapes and sizes that bucket every value-added service conceivable. Simply, smaller providers see their competitive advantage become smaller with several options for merchants in the market,” he says.

What might distinguish smaller payments providers is having a local presence and being available, though product diversity remains important, Ferguson suggests. “There’s always a benefit to being the local and always-available provider, but if these merchants are successful, and continue to grow to markets beyond the local area, attrition occurs as smaller providers lack the omnichannel capabilities to remain competitive.”