Industry
Payments
Payments
Success in a fast-moving market requires staying ahead of change.
Our Experience
1,200+
projects completed globally
~85%
of the leading payments companies have worked with us
~80%
of payments private equity deals have been supported by our team
The payments industry is evolving at an unprecedented pace, becoming increasingly defined by technology, data, and digital-first customer experiences. Payments companies are no longer just financial services providers—they are tech-driven organizations that leverage AI, improve efficiency via automation, and deliver seamless digital user experiences.
Across the ecosystem—from issuers and networks to processors, acquirers, and fintech disruptors—success hinges on adapting to key trends shaping the industry’s future. The rapid growth of e-commerce and merchant services is fueling demand for frictionless checkout, omnichannel payment solutions, and next-generation fraud prevention. Embedded finance is redefining how consumers and businesses interact with financial services. AI-enabled personalization is creating tailored payment experiences, and real-time payments are streamlining transactions. Meanwhile, blockchain is reshaping cross-border payments with new digital assets such as stablecoins.
As financial services, customer excellence, and technology increasingly converge to redefine the payments landscape, our payments consultants bring deep industry expertise to help clients navigate change. We partner with payments leaders to modernize legacy systems, harness AI and automation, and unlock new revenue streams through next-gen platforms. Whether it’s unlocking full potential transformation, accelerating value creation strategies, or driving consumer-led product innovation, we provide the strategic insights and executional support needed to succeed.
Our Client Results in Payments
Operating model redesign
To stay competitive with digital-first disruptors amid evolving customer expectations, regulatory complexity, and rapid tech innovation, a payments incumbent transformed its static operating model. We partnered with the company to design a customer-centric model that replaced rigid functional silos, emphasizing clear decision-making frameworks and seamless collaboration between product and technology teams. Using our proprietary benchmarking database, Aster, the company assessed its talent structure against industry leaders to inform a best-in-class organizational design.
Key to the redesign’s success was adopting an evergreen strategy: Ongoing prioritization and resource allocation enabled the company to continually adapt to shifting market dynamics. Collectively, these strategic moves delivered a streamlined organization, faster decision making, and a sustainable competitive advantage in a rapidly changing industry.
Optimizing PMI
Drawing on our proven post-merger integration (PMI) playbook, we helped a leading European payment technology firm unlock over €300M in recurring cash synergies in IT, operations, and procurement. Our disciplined, three-phase PMI approach focused on early planning, rapid synergy capture, and long-term transformation.
We helped the company follow the money—or prioritize high-value synergies—and keep a laser focus on operational stability, business continuity, and change management amid rapid changes. By balancing quick wins with future readiness, the company built a scalable, competitive payments platform. As the industry continues to consolidate, this PMI approach offers a blueprint for successful integration from deal to delivery.
Results:
- €300M in recurring cash synergies
- Unified operating model and scalable, future-ready structure
Future-ready platform
Growth through multiple acquisitions left a global acquirer with many duplicative platforms, outdated technology, and a fragmented customer experience. These inefficiencies weren’t just technical—they were driving up costs and pushing away customers. We designed a multi-year modernization roadmap focused on standardizing product governance, building a scalable, future-ready architecture, and introducing event-driven processing and real-time payouts.
As a result of this work, the company has renewed growth, improved retention, and reduced tech maintenance costs—improvements that are already helping them better compete with tech-native payment disruptors.
Results:
- Increased growth and penetration in targeted segments
- Achieved multi-million-dollar savings
Journey mapping
Low R&D efficiency hindered a leading global payments processor’s ability to retain customers, drive innovation, and stay competitive. As part of a strategic shift to a product-led operating model, we mapped the company’s end-to-end customer journey, aligned on a future state, and prioritized the roadmap based on immediate merchant pain points and sequencing path to future state.
We redesigned merchant onboarding, engagement, and retention processes to deliver seamless, cohesive experiences, and embedded customer centricity throughout the product lifecycle. Crucially, we empowered teams to maintain new capabilities with codified playbooks for product discovery, design, and delivery. Not only did the company significantly improve merchant satisfaction and engagement—it also built a repeatable capability and a robust, scalable framework for continuous product innovation.
Results:
- Projected $100M annual revenue uplift
- Doubled digital engagement within key segments
Operating model redesign
To stay competitive with digital-first disruptors amid evolving customer expectations, regulatory complexity, and rapid tech innovation, a payments incumbent transformed its static operating model. We partnered with the company to design a customer-centric model that replaced rigid functional silos, emphasizing clear decision-making frameworks and seamless collaboration between product and technology teams. Using our proprietary benchmarking database, Aster, the company assessed its talent structure against industry leaders to inform a best-in-class organizational design.
Key to the redesign’s success was adopting an evergreen strategy: Ongoing prioritization and resource allocation enabled the company to continually adapt to shifting market dynamics. Collectively, these strategic moves delivered a streamlined organization, faster decision making, and a sustainable competitive advantage in a rapidly changing industry.
Optimizing PMI
Drawing on our proven post-merger integration (PMI) playbook, we helped a leading European payment technology firm unlock over €300M in recurring cash synergies in IT, operations, and procurement. Our disciplined, three-phase PMI approach focused on early planning, rapid synergy capture, and long-term transformation.
We helped the company follow the money—or prioritize high-value synergies—and keep a laser focus on operational stability, business continuity, and change management amid rapid changes. By balancing quick wins with future readiness, the company built a scalable, competitive payments platform. As the industry continues to consolidate, this PMI approach offers a blueprint for successful integration from deal to delivery.
Results:
- €300M in recurring cash synergies
- Unified operating model and scalable, future-ready structure
Future-ready platform
Growth through multiple acquisitions left a global acquirer with many duplicative platforms, outdated technology, and a fragmented customer experience. These inefficiencies weren’t just technical—they were driving up costs and pushing away customers. We designed a multi-year modernization roadmap focused on standardizing product governance, building a scalable, future-ready architecture, and introducing event-driven processing and real-time payouts.
As a result of this work, the company has renewed growth, improved retention, and reduced tech maintenance costs—improvements that are already helping them better compete with tech-native payment disruptors.
Results:
- Increased growth and penetration in targeted segments
- Achieved multi-million-dollar savings
Journey mapping
Low R&D efficiency hindered a leading global payments processor’s ability to retain customers, drive innovation, and stay competitive. As part of a strategic shift to a product-led operating model, we mapped the company’s end-to-end customer journey, aligned on a future state, and prioritized the roadmap based on immediate merchant pain points and sequencing path to future state.
We redesigned merchant onboarding, engagement, and retention processes to deliver seamless, cohesive experiences, and embedded customer centricity throughout the product lifecycle. Crucially, we empowered teams to maintain new capabilities with codified playbooks for product discovery, design, and delivery. Not only did the company significantly improve merchant satisfaction and engagement—it also built a repeatable capability and a robust, scalable framework for continuous product innovation.
Results:
- Projected $100M annual revenue uplift
- Doubled digital engagement within key segments
Strategy support
After a financial investor acquired a leading digital payments provider, we delivered a detailed fact-based analysis to support strategic decision making, focusing on geographical and product expansion levers. For both its acquiring and issuing businesses in two key regions, we augmented our findings with secondary data and summarized the company’s point of departure, including its market and competitive positioning, financial performance, and current strategy.
This market intelligence exercise enabled us to formulate informed decisions on strategic growth options, including value at stake, target segments, product focus, entry barriers, and actionable entry strategy options (including organic and external).
