When fraud attack rates fall, the instinct is to celebrate. One might think fewer attacks means better defenses and better outcomes. But a close look at recent fraud trend data tells a more complicated story, and fraud teams that read the headline number without reading the fine print may find themselves caught off guard.

Payment fraud attack rates declined 14% year over year, and manual review volume dropped 17%; yet over the same period, overall chargeback rates climbed 56%. The two trends are connected, and showcase that fewer attacks doesn’t mean fraud risk is declining overall.

Precision has replaced volume

For the last few years, merchants have faced a steady increase in fraud attempts volume as AI and automation made it easier for bad actors to attack at scale. As a result, companies fortified their defenses, and that calibration seems to be helping, since payment fraud and manual review rates have decreased.

However, what the data now shows is that fraudsters are deliberately targeting what they believe to be high-volume accounts with stored credentials and accumulated balances that offer higher payoff per attempt. 21% of consumers report experiencing account takeover in the past year, often alongside payment fraud.

The metrics that teams traditionally used to evaluate fraud program health were built to measure volume. When the threat changes shape but the measurement framework doesn’t, teams can end up optimizing for the wrong outcome.

The “good user gone bad” pattern illustrates this well. Attackers build account credibility over time, establishing normal behavior and generating positive transaction history before executing a high-value fraudulent action, such as adding stolen payment credentials to a trusted account, weeks or months later. A fraud model evaluated solely on immediate transaction outcomes will miss this entirely. The account looks fine until it doesn’t.

Efficiency gains aren’t the same as risk reduction

The 17% decline in manual review volume reflects real operational progress: stronger automation, more precise decision logic, less friction for legitimate users. But when review volume falls while chargebacks rise simultaneously, that combination can indicate decision thresholds are well-tuned for speed but not fully calibrated for more sophisticated attack patterns.

Reducing manual review should free analysts for complex, high-value investigation. When efficiency metrics and chargeback loss metrics simultaneously increase, merchants should audit where automation is working effectively and where human judgment can reduce some of these more complex fraud attempts.

Industry context changes everything

Fraud exposure doesn’t distribute evenly across business models, and comparing rates to a broad industry average can lead teams to the wrong conclusions. A 3.7% payment fraud attack rate in food and delivery reflects the speed-first, high-volume nature of that environment. A 0.4% attack rate in online gambling sounds low, until you account for the fact that high-value transactions concentrate dispute risk in ways that raw attack volume doesn’t capture.

Internet and software companies face elevated chargeback exposure for a specific reason: subscription models and stored credentials are convenient for fraudulent and legitimate users alike. The same features that reduce checkout friction also lower the barrier for account compromise. This is why peer benchmarking matters more than absolute numbers. A rate that looks alarming in isolation may be typical for a specific segment, while a rate that looks clean may signal under-detection.

The trust dimension

Fraud’s impact on consumer behavior rarely makes it into internal loss calculations, but it belongs there. When 52% of consumers say they would stop using a platform after experiencing fraud, and 73% say they’ve abandoned a purchase due to payment security concerns, fraud goes from a finance problem to a growth problem.

Losing a customer to fraud isn’t only a one-time transaction loss. It’s the cumulative value of everything that a customer would have spent, plus the reputational cost when trust erodes publicly. Customers rarely distinguish between attacker behavior and platform responsibility. If an account gets compromised, the brand absorbs the perception hit.

Measuring the right things

The practical reality is that a single metric, however directionally encouraging, doesn’t tell the full story. The more useful questions are:

• Is chargeback exposure tracking with attack rate trends?
• Are manual review resources concentrated where complexity warrants them?
• Is account-level risk being measured longitudinally rather than only at the transaction moment?

Fraud concentrates where incentives are highest and where defenses haven’t kept pace. The teams best positioned to stay ahead are the ones asking whether the numbers they’re watching are the right ones.

Retailers are under constant pressure to protect margins while still investing in growth. From rising costs and economic uncertainty to shifting consumer preferences, there’s very little room for wasted spend.

Payment processing may not be flashy, but it’s a lever worth pulling. Payment processing fees can add up, particularly if you handle a high volume of credit card transactions.

One way to lower payment processing fees is to explore non-traditional pricing models, such as membership-based pricing. Ideal for high-volume retailers, growing omnichannel businesses and brands with thin margins, it offers a more predictable way to manage costs.

Let’s look into it.

What is membership-based pricing for payment processing?

Membership-based pricing replaces percentage markups with a flat monthly fee. Instead of paying a processor a cut of every sale, retailers pay the true interchange and network costs, plus a predictable membership fee.

Here’s how it compares to other pricing modes.

Pricing model	How it works	Impact on retailers
Tiered pricing	Transactions are grouped into broad rate tiers like qualified, mid-qualified, and non-qualified. The processor sets the rates.	Hard to predict costs and easy to overpay. Retailers often don’t know which transactions fall into which tier, leading to higher effective rates.
Flat-rate pricing	A single percentage and per-transaction fee applies to all payments, regardless of card type or risk.	Simple to understand but expensive at scale. Retailers pay the same rate for low-cost and high-cost cards, which eats into margins as volume grows.
Interchange-plus pricing	Retailers pay the actual interchange fees plus a processor markup on each transaction.	More transparent than tiered pricing, but costs still rise as sales increase. The processor earns more as the retailer grows.
Membership-based pricing	Retailers pay a fixed membership fee and cover interchange and network fees without added per-transaction markups.	High-volume retailers can significantly reduce processing costs and gain more predictable monthly expenses.

How membership-style payment processing can save retailers money

Lower effective costs as volume grows

With traditional payment pricing, fees scale directly with revenue. More sales mean more fees, even if nothing about your operation changes. Membership-style pricing, which is offered at Stax, works differently. Retailers pay a flat monthly or annual fee and then process payments at wholesale interchange rates. As transaction volume increases, the effective cost per transaction goes down. For high-volume retailers, that shift alone can unlock meaningful savings.

Fewer hidden markups baked into every transaction

Many pricing models quietly include processor markups in every swipe, tap or online checkout. These markups are often hard to spot and even harder to calculate. When you partner with a provider that uses the membership pricing model, you pay true interchange without an extra percentage added on top. The result is clearer billing and fewer surprises when reviewing statements.

Predictable monthly expenses

Payment fees are one of the most unpredictable line items for retailers. A busy sales month can be great for revenue but painful when fees spike. Membership-style pricing introduces consistency. While interchange still varies slightly by card type, the pricing structure itself stays stable. This makes it easier to forecast costs and budget accurately.

Savings that reward growth instead of penalizing it

Traditional pricing models unintentionally punish success. As sales climb, fees climb right along with them. A membership-based payment pricing model flips that dynamic. The more volume a retailer processes, the more value they get from the flat fee. This makes the model especially attractive for retailers focused on scaling, expanding locations or growing ecommerce and omnichannel sales.

Better alignment with modern retail operations

Retail today is rarely single-channel. Between in-store, online, mobile and subscription-style purchases, payment volume adds up fast. As such, you should opt for a payment solution that can handle that complexity without multiplying costs across channels. Retailers can process more transactions without worrying that each new sales stream will erode margins through higher processing fees.

Clearer insight into where money is going

When pricing is simpler, reporting becomes more useful. Membership-style pricing makes it easier to separate interchange costs from processor fees, helping retailers understand exactly what they’re paying and why. That visibility supports better financial decisions, whether you’re negotiating contracts, comparing providers or evaluating new sales channels.

Types of merchants that benefit most from membership-style payment processing (and who it’s less ideal for)

Membership-style payment processing isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. Merchants who see the biggest upside include:

• High-volume retailers that process a lot of credit card transactions regularly
• Omnichannel and multi-location businesses that need to keep costs predictable and consistent across sales channels
• Retailers with thin margins

On the flip side, the following types of merchants may not benefit as much from membership-based payment processing:

• Low-volume or early-stage retailers that process a small number of transactions per month
• Businesses with inconsistent processing volume
• Cash-heavy operations

Final words

Membership-style payment processing won’t solve every retail challenge, but it can make a real dent in one of the most persistent costs. For retailers processing steady volume, the model offers a fairer way to pay for payments—one that rewards growth instead of taxing it. The key is understanding your transaction profile and choosing a pricing structure that actually works in your favor.

The Abandonment Epidemic: 81% of Shoppers Turn Their Backs on Brands

The symptoms are unmistakable: plummeting retention rates, spiking customer churn, and brand loyalty flatlining across the US. The recent survey What’s Killing Conversions for Enterprise Retailers? by SCAYLE on shopping behavior confirms the diagnosis: a staggering 81% of US shoppers have abandoned a brand in the past year.

In today’s retail battleground, the margin for error is microscopic. One sluggish page load, one confusing checkout flow, one delivery delay quickly turns into another lost customer.

The vital question: how do you vaccinate your business against this spreading contagion? The answer lies in understanding why customers are jumping ship – and how a healthy, integrated commerce approach works as preventative medicine.

The customer experience breakdown

The era of unconditional brand loyalty is clinically dead. Today’s shoppers will walk after just one poor experience – no second opinions needed. SCAYLE’s research reveals broken shopping journeys as a primary cause of brand abandonment.

According to the survey, one in three shoppers cut ties with brands over frustrating online or in-store experiences, slow deliveries, or missing discounts.

Consumers expect diagnostic precision across every touchpoint – seamless, consistent, and painless. When even one interaction fails, it creates an immunity to your re-engagement efforts that’s tough to overcome.

Commerce teams looking to diagnose their own system weak points do well to start with a full tech stack checkup – before symptoms start showing up in churn data.

The best eCommerce platforms treat this condition by connecting all touchpoints through a unified, modular architecture. The result? A commerce experience that flows naturally whether customers browse on mobile, purchase on desktop, or track orders through your app.

Pricing transparency: the heart of customer trust

“We lost them on price” is an incomplete diagnosis. With competitive analysis just a tap away, customers aren’t just comparing costs – they’re evaluating the entire health of your value proposition. And that evaluation happens under even closer scrutiny in a market rocked by tariff changes and economic uncertainty. Shoppers aren’t just asking if the product is affordable – they’re asking whether it justifies its price at a time when every dollar feels more precarious.

Price outweighs brand for 36% of shoppers – a signal that perceived value now matters more than familiarity. In moments of doubt, it’s not loyalty that decides – it’s clarity. Hidden fees, limited payment options, and convoluted return policies quickly trigger brand abandonment.

But even transparent pricing can’t compensate for disappointing products. Across all age groups, product quality ranks as a leading reason for abandonment – shoppers won’t pay unless the offering lives up to its promise: opaque pricing structures and inconsistent quality cause a severe allergic reaction in today’s buyers.

This isn’t about being the cheapest option – it’s about building pricing transparency and clearly emphasizing value, making shoppers less sensitive to price alone.

A flexible pricing setup helps maintain a consistent value proposition across channels – building the kind of clarity that keeps price-sensitive shoppers from straying.

The silent killer: tech stack fragmentation syndrome

Here’s a common infection pathway: A customer adds items to your mobile app shopping cart only to find them “unavailable” when they switch to desktop. Or their loyalty points mysteriously reset between digital and physical shopping experiences.

The underlying disease? Systems that can’t or won’t talk to each other. When core platforms like your ERP, CRM, PIM, and eCommerce engine operate in isolation, friction builds and customers walk away.

With 60% of shoppers mixing online and in-store interactions, even small disconnects between channels can break the journey. When experiences feel inconsistent, customers don’t wait for explanations – they disengage. While your teams apply band-aid solutions and manual workarounds, your customers simply leave.

A connected architecture that synchronizes systems in real time is essential for delivering seamless experiences across channels. When core platforms – from checkout to inventory to loyalty – share a single source of data, the result is less friction, faster responsiveness, and stronger customer relationships.

The prescription: unified commerce therapy for long-term survival

Cart recovery emails won’t heal brand fatigue. Loyalty points can’t bandage over broken experiences. And price slashing creates an untenable addiction, not sustainable health.

So the most effective treatment combines both prevention and cure: Building a commerce backbone that’s as agile as today’s market demands – one that’s unified, composable, and designed to evolve with changing conditions.

Ready for a full commerce health check? Learn what else is killing conversions for enterprise retailers – and how to overcome it. SCAYLE surveyed over 1,500 US shoppers about why they abandon brands, and what keeps them coming back for more.

payabl. has released a survey, questioning customers from the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands in regards to the importance of the online purchasing experience.

According to the findings based on the observations of customers across the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands, 43% of all shoppers would not return to a retailer if the online checkout process was a poor one. 

During the survey, the participants were asked about their reasons for abandoning their online shopping basket, and nearly half of UK shoppers (44%) invoked a cumbersome checkout process. The percentage for the other countries is significantly lower – Germany with 29% and the Netherlands with 36%.

The results of the research highlight the importance of a fast and convenient process of online shopping for UK customers, but also the areas in which shoppers are prepared to change or compromise their preferences to get the experience they desire.

The importance of security in online payments

The survey underlines that 25% of UK shoppers aim to deliver their payment details to any online retailer store if it makes the checkout experience easier. In Germany (15%) and the Netherlands (16%), customers are not prepared to let any retailer store their payment information. 

While most European customers (71%) consider that fraud protection is non-negotiable, a third (32%) of UK shoppers want the checkout process to be a faster one, even if they will have some online fraud protections removed. A quarter of them declared that they would even agree with removing the fraud protection checks completely to get a faster checkout process. On the other hand, the German (12%) and the Dutch (17%) customers are not prepared to compromise on the security process. 

In 2023, the UK experienced over GBP 1.17 billion in fraud losses, and a significant portion came from ecommerce. Over GBP 360.5 million were stolen by criminals through remote purchases, which acquire card details through data theft methods such as breaches, scam text messages, and phishing emails. 

The situation is a challenge for both merchants and ecommerce platforms in the UK that must balance the demands of shoppers for a fast and accessible checkout experience while ensuring that the payment details are safely secured and implementing robust checks before authorising payments. 

Officials from payabl. note that UK customers demand fast and effective payments for not abandoning purchases. This behaviour is changing the perception of shoppers when it comes to security measures and storing their payment details online. It is important to work with reliable payment providers to prevent fraud without adding unnecessary friction.

More information on the study

The information presented above is part of payabl’s upcoming whitepaper, whose focus is on European checkouts and customer expectations, including payment preferences and security aspects. 

The independent research company Coleman Parkes conducted an online survey on behalf of payabl. The survey involved 1400 customers from the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands who have made an online purchase and an in-store purchase in the past month.

The upcoming whitepaper will look in detail at the online checkout process in Europe, including aspects like online shopping habits, payment preferences, and the role of security in payments.

For more information about payabl., please check out their detailed profile in our dedicated, industry-specific Company Database.

In post-checkout UX, the goal for many ecommerce sites is to retain and engage users after their initial purchase.

For example, some sites include order tracking directly on their site so that users return to check the status of their package (and hopefully find something else that they want while there).

This kind of repeated visit can ultimately produce a lifelong user, and so post-checkout UX opportunities like this should not be ignored.

In this article, we’ll dive into Baymard’s research findings to identify two opportunity areas for easy wins in post-checkout UX: account creation and user-created product photos.

These areas provide easy wins because they simply make it easier for users who want to continue engaging with the site post-checkout.

Yet our ecommerce UX benchmark shows that 69% of sites don’t do 1 or more of the following 4 best practices, missing out on opportunities to further engage with users.

This article describes 4 ways to improve the post-checkout UX:

1. The most effective time to encourage users to create accounts
2. The best way to present the value of account creation to users
3. The reasons why users should be encouraged to upload images with their reviews
4. The logic and method for integrating social media images into ecommerce UX

1) Save Account Creation for the Confirmation Step (54% Don’t)

During Baymard’s large-scale testing, most participants explained that they are likely to create accounts at sites they repeatedly visit, and in practice having an account at a site saves users time and makes checking out more efficient.

But interrupting all guest users to suggest they create an account too early — before or in the middle of the checkout process — caused some participants to halt their progression through checkout.​‌‌‍‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‍‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‎

In other words, creating an account at the beginning of checkout (at the account selection step) was perceived by many participants to be a significant burden.

Making the problem worse, some users will consequently associate the majority of the form fields in the checkout flow with account creation rather than recognizing them as standard checkout fields they would have to complete regardless of whether they create an account or check out as a guest.

To keep users focused on the primary goal — getting through the checkout process — save the option to create an account until after checkout is complete.

In testing, this implementation performed better than presenting the invitation at either the start or the middle of the checkout process.

By saving account creation for the confirmation step, users don’t have to evaluate the pros and cons of creating an account before they’ve finalized their order — instead, they can proceed with completing their purchase.

In practice, any opportunity to delay users’ choices until after the order has been placed creates a checkout flow that is easier to complete — and, more importantly, feels easier to complete for the end user.

Saving account creation for the confirmation step may also increase users’ willingness to create an account, as users are less likely to associate the bulk of checkout fields — such as address and payment information — with account creation, as they will already have completed them as part of the guest checkout process.

Consequently, creating an account will then only consist of creating a password — and all of the guest user’s information can be automatically saved for the next time they return.

In effect, sites that don’t invite guest users to create an account following checkout miss a key opportunity to entice users to sign up.

2) Always Provide the Benefits of Creating an Account (57% Don’t)

Unfortunately, even if sites pick the right time to encourage users to create an account, it’s not enough to simply provide a password field and a message saying, “Create an account for faster checkout next time”.

In general, we’ve observed that most participants need more convincing to create yet another ecommerce account.

And the specific reasons matter — mentioning vague or unexplained “benefits” of account creation can be nearly as detrimental as not mentioning any benefits at all.

In testing, this was especially the case for sites that highlighted unique incentives such as rewards programs without explaining what the rewards actually are and how to redeem them.

Essentially, users are likely to be unconvinced to create an account when the benefits presented appear too vague or not enticing enough to be worthwhile.

In testing, we’ve observed that participants positively responded to a variety of featured account benefits.

Foremost, users often appreciate that having an account will save them from having to retype data when they visit the site again, especially in mobile ecommerce UX, where typing issues and typing fatigue are frequent problems.

Another standard benefit that sites can highlight is registered users’ comprehensive access to past order details and tracking, allowing them to easily monitor order status.

As one participant shared, “I find it really convenient, for electronics, that I can log in and see when I bought it if something breaks…and if it is something you frequently buy, then it is nice that you can go in and place the order again”.

For visual implementation, we observed that bulleted lists and eye-catching graphics often performed better at capturing participants’ attention than simple lines of text, which tended to be quickly scanned and risk being skipped entirely.

Providing the benefits of creating an account is a “low-cost” UX opportunity: a few lines of text can result in more registered — and loyal — users.

3) Encourage Users to Submit Photos with Reviews

Product images are essential for evaluating an item, and users increasingly seek user-submitted content to build confidence that a product meets their needs.

During testing, we’ve found that images submitted by users after their purchase often provide crucial details missing from a site’s standard images, such as how a makeup shade looks on different skin tones or creative styling ideas for clothing and decor.

Users often find user-submitted product images more objective, reliable, and trustworthy than site-provided ones, which can seem overly polished or enhanced.

Past buyers tend to share a range of both negative and positive experiences, while site images tend to focus on only the positives.

Thus user-submitted product images serve as social proof that allows users to view products in real-life settings, assess size and scale, and uncover unexpected details — boosting confidence in their purchase.

To support this, actively request images in the review form, and encourage uploads of one or more photos.

Furthermore, making reviewer-submitted images easy to find and simple to navigate reinforces their value and can motivate others to share their experiences too.

4) Add Social Media Visuals to the Product Page (69% Don’t)

Alongside review images, incorporating social media photos can further boost buyer confidence.

Some users seek inspiration for styling or want to confirm a design idea they have in mind, and social media images offer an authentic look at specific product attributes that may not be fully captured in brand-provided photos.

In testing, participants were eager to see social media images from past buyers of the product they were considering, since each social media image represents a unique and verifiable instance of a real person buying and using a product.

Thus the mere presence of social media images is a positive signal in itself separate from the image contents or composition.

Users expect to see social media content on the product page as a category of visual information in its own right, distinct from both site-provided and reviewer-submitted images, even as they serve overlapping roles.

When that insight is missing from the product page, some users will struggle to be fully confident in the product, and a subset will not feel comfortable purchasing without first leaving the site to seek them out.

To give users ample “visual social proof” from real users, sites should curate social media images from platforms like Instagram and integrate them on their product pages.

In terms of implementation, users respond well when social media images link to a larger, “shoppable” version of the image that provides links or other direct access to the products featured.

Sites can further improve the user experience by using labels to reference the original post or platform the image is sourced from, or to denote whether the posting is a promotion.

Sites are cautioned here not to include many social media posts from paid sources, since an abundance of “paid promotion” posts will diminish the feeling of authenticity the images are meant to convey.

Social media is the preferred source of product information for many users, and the place where many buyer journeys begin, so incorporating this content on the product page is increasingly important.

Sites will need to adapt as the relevance of different social media platforms and content formats shifts over time, but at minimum, embedding images or videos from these platforms relevant to the product in question reduces the likelihood of users leaving the site to seek them out.

Retain Users by Engaging Them Post-Checkout

Mastering post-checkout UX requires sites to understand the unique willingness to engage with a site late in checkout and at certain points after checkout is complete.

As users finishing buying a product, their curiosity about when it will arrive can motivate them to stay engaged with the site through creating an account to more easily track its delivery.

Later, users form their in-person opinion of the delivered product, and sites can encourage users to provide reviews with photos or to share their commentary of the product over social media, which has a special significance for users when used on product pages.

All of this engagement means more attention to a site and its products.

What’s more, we have tested, effective tools for encouraging that engagement and increasing the potential that users who check out will become users who check back in:

1. Save account creation for the confirmation step (54% Don’t)
2. Always provide the benefits of creating an account (57% Don’t)
3. Encourage users to submit photos with reviews
4. Add social media visuals to the product page (69% Don’t)

While not all users will end up creating an account or providing reviews or social media visuals, adopting these 4 tools for engagement will encourage some users to do so — providing a site with more registered users and additional valuable content.

This article presents the research findings from just a few of the 650+ UX guidelines in Baymard – get full access to learn how to create a “State of the Art” ecommerce user experience.

If you want to know how your desktop site, mobile site, or app performs and compares, then learn more about getting Baymard to conduct a UX Audit of your site or app.

As competition among payment orchestrators heats up, providers looking to separate themselves from the pack find themselves under pressure to offer points of differentiation, according to Datos Insights’ “Payment Orchestration Vendor Evaluation” report, released Tuesday.

One key differentiator for payment orchestrators is smart payment routing, according to the report. This provides businesses with greater control over their payment strategy. It also includes other features, including customized payment flows, dynamic load distribution, reduction of transaction costs, A/B testing of different processors, and use of fallback routing and cascading to an alternate provider in case a payment provider becomes unavailable.

Payment orchestration, which is growing 11% annually, according to Datos, is the process of managing a diverse range of payment methods, providers, and channels within a unified platform to ensure smooth payment processing for businesses.

The advantage of working with a payment orchestrator, advocates say, is that merchants have one point of contact for their payment activity. This eliminates the need to work directly with multiple integrations with different payment gateways. The expected result is that merchants enjoy cost savings, improved payment success rates, and, in many cases, a “superior user experience for customers,” the report says.

Behind the orchestration trend, “there are two major drivers,” Thad Peterson, a strategic advisor at Datos Insights, tells Digital Transactions News by email. “First [is] the increasing complexity of the space, driven by additional payment types, governmental regulation, and the need for effective fraud control.

“The second driver is the increase in cross-border payments. Commerce is global but payments are local. It’s essential that a merchant provide their customer with the payment options that they want to use or they’ll lose the sale, which means that local payment options need to be included.”

But now orchestration providers must distinguish themselves in a crowded market, Peterson says. “Provide the payment and service alternatives that the merchant wants at a competitive price,” he advises. “Stay on top of trends in the space and technological developments that can improve the offering and meet the merchant’s needs.”  

Payment orchestrators further differentiate themselves by providing tools to streamline the checkout experience, risk-management tools, and a modern, cloud-native platform. The last item is something merchants have simply come to expect, the report says.

Payment orchestrators should also be paying close attention to generative artificial intelligence, as it can streamline their reporting and analytics capabilities further.

“Payment orchestration is essentially an intelligent tool for managing the payments ecosystem, so artificial intelligence should play a significant role in the future,” says the report.

ACI Worldwide Inc. ranked as the top payment orchestrator in the report. Datos evaluated six companies, including BPC, BR-DGE, CelerisPay B.V., Cellpoint Digital Holdings Inc., and Spreedly Inc.  

Datos also interviewed merchants and other clients of the participating payment orchestrators, in addition to leveraging its research database.

The report ranks orchestrators across four categories: provider stability, client strength, client service, and product features. ACI achieved the highest ranking and average score across categories and was the only vendor to earn the report’s “Best in Class” accreditation.

“ACI is well-positioned to support complex merchant payment requirements across the globe, including omnichannel payment acceptance, AI-powered fraud prevention, and payment journey optimization. All these capabilities are available through a single, unified platform,” the report says.

Payment orchestrators looking to differentiate themselves from the competition should continue to broaden available connections in payments and value-added services to remain competitive among merchants, advises the report.

“As the space expands, it will be increasingly difficult to differentiate from competitor solutions. Explore creating payment-orchestration solutions for specific retail verticals such as hospitality, restaurants, or health care,” the report adds.