Checkout.com logs 126% US growth as North America rivalry sharpens
Checkout.com has recorded 126% year-on-year growth in US payment volume for Q2 2026, the company announced at its merchant summit Thrive in New York. Total US processing volume is on course to exceed $100bn by year end, the company says, making the US its fastest-growing region globally. The announcement arrives alongside a suite of new product launches spanning direct acquiring, payouts, issuing, and a dedicated platform solution for software businesses and marketplaces.
The growth figures reflect a deliberate build-out rather than opportunistic volume capture. Head of North America Zack Levine attributed the momentum to stronger performance fundamentals: "Higher acceptance rates, lower latency, more control, and stronger overall payment performance. As we prove that value, our relationships deepen and merchants trust us with more of their business." The company counts Uber, Spotify, Microsoft, eBay, Coinbase, Pinterest, and Best Buy among its US merchant base.
Direct access and the infrastructure edge
The most structurally significant disclosure is Checkout.com's position as one of only three companies processing payments through a Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank in the US. That status gives the company direct access to card networks, bypassing layers of intermediary infrastructure. For enterprise merchants, the practical benefits include faster product rollouts and greater control over the payment lifecycle, but for Checkout.com, it represents a meaningful moat in a market where Stripe, Adyen, and Braintree compete fiercely on margin and performance.
The new Platforms product is targeted at independent software vendors, SaaS businesses, and marketplaces managing complex multi-seller money flows. It allows those businesses to embed and monetise payments without assuming the regulatory and operational burden of becoming a payment facilitator. On the payouts side, Checkout.com is adding Real-Time Payments alongside existing ACH rails to achieve full coverage of the US banking population, and extending Pay-to-Card in Canada via Visa Direct and Mastercard Move. Issuing, already live in the UK and the European Economic Area, will launch in the US, connecting card issuance directly to acquired balances and reducing the pre-funding drag that ties up merchant liquidity.
The convergence angle: payments infrastructure as enterprise operating layer
The broader strategic read matters for cross-sector leaders. Enterprise payments infrastructure is quietly becoming a critical operating layer for sectors far beyond retail, from the gig economy and creator marketplaces to healthcare billing and defence contractor supply chains. The ability to issue cards, acquire transactions, and move money in real time within a single unified platform is not merely a fintech story; it reshapes how any enterprise manages working capital and cross-border exposure.
Checkout.com's expansion also sits within a wider race by global payment processors to own the full money-movement stack before regulatory frameworks consolidate. Open banking mandates in the UK and the EU have already compressed interchange economics in those markets. The US is now the primary battleground, and the entrants that secure direct network access and issuing licences now will be hardest to displace when federal real-time payments regulation inevitably follows. For macro investors watching the payments infrastructure space, the competitive dynamic pits Checkout.com's enterprise-focused model against Adyen's dual-platform strategy and Stripe's developer-ecosystem lock-in, all three are converging on the same stack. Mexico's inclusion as a new operational hub also signals a broader Americas play, as nearshoring trends push enterprise payment complexity southward.