Stripe Taps Verifone to Make a Major Card-Present Move

Verifone Inc. announced Wednesday it will work with Stripe Inc. to enable Stripe’s payments services on Verifone point-of-sale devices. The move brings e-commerce giant Stripe further into the business of card-present processing and represents Verifone’s latest move to collaborate with major e-commerce payments players, following a recent agreement to provide devices for PayPal Holdings Inc.

Verifone and Stripe said Verifone terminals will be made available to Stripe users in the U.S. market to begin with and will then be offered elsewhere, though no timetable was offered. Neither Stripe nor Verifone responded to queries from Digital Transactions News regarding the announcement. Stripe is the sixth largest processor by volume, according to rankings made by TSG, a research and consulting firm.

The two California-based companies envision such applications as self-service checkout and tableside ordering at restaurants. The devices will work with digital wallets, QR codes, and loyalty programs, and can issue printed or digital receipts, the parties say. The product range, they say, will include handheld devices up to multilane deployments.

Stripe has worked to penetrate the physical point of sale since 2018, when it launched beta testing for Stripe Terminal, technology it made generally available in the U.S. market a year later.

Now observers see the collaboration with Verifone enabling a much more potent move into the card-present market for Stripe. “Stripe brings a massive portfolio of merchants, plenty of whom who may need card-present solutions. Verifone enhances Stripe’s offerings, so they can service more potential merchants,” says Cliff Gray, principal at Gray Consulting.

As formidable as Stripe has made itself in e-commerce processing since its founding in 2010, observers say it has long seen a need for a major move into physical stores. The company last year processed $1.4 trillion in volume, a 38% increase over 2023. “You have to serve the physical point of sale,” says Eric Grover, principal at the consultancy Intrepid Ventures. The absence of a strong proposition for both online and in-person payments “limits you and makes your value proposition unpalatable to merchants,” he adds.

Now, working with Verifone “gives [Stripe] access to a whole new set of merchants,” Grover says. Crucially, the move could also be a key to unlock the physical small-business market. “It gives Stripe a more persuasive offer,” he says.

Numbers are not available on the proportion of Stripe’s volume derived from card-present transactions. “I don’t believe it’s significant—yet, any way,” says Gray.

That hint of things to come refers to a move some experts expected long ago. “My first thought about the partnership was, it’s about time,” Gray says.” Stripe has long underserved the card-present market. Why they haven’t engaged in these partnerships previously has always been in question.”

Now, though, Gray says Stripe may have found a partner in Verifone that is looking to expand its market as much as Stripe aims to do. “I can only imagine that each party was looking for a greater audience outside their current reach,” he says. “Stripe brings a massive portfolio of merchants, plenty of whom who may need card-present solutions. Verifone enhances Stripe’s offerings, so they can service more potential merchants. 

Now the critical question boils down to cost to the merchant. For now, that remains unclear. “Pricing would be anybody’s guess,” says Gray. “These pricing models and other hybrids have all been seen in the real world. It will vary greatly depending on the merchant size and configuration. More likely is that processing revenue will be prioritized over terminal revenue.”