Outdated and at breaking point: Unpacking the payment technology crisis

It came as little surprise to me that four in five payment leaders (79%) say their payment technology needs to be replaced or overhauled. 

This was one of the headline findings from our new report: “The untold story of payment pioneers.” 

Over the last 12 months, I’ve spoken with scores of payment leaders who’ve shown me what’s under the hood. And often, it’s not pretty. The vast majority recognize the shortcomings of their technology stack and want to speak with me because they know that, at some point, their outdated technology stack will get in the way of their goals—if it isn’t already. 

These leaders understand the importance of investing in new, cutting-edge technology to keep their payment operations in the spotlight. Rather than making incremental fixes to legacy systems, they’re striving for a modern, unified payments infrastructure that delivers the flexibility, choice, and scalability needed to turn payments into a powerful engine for growth.

Uncovering the root cause of tech debt 

When reviewing the survey results, someone asked me why many businesses have ended up with outdated, ineffective payment tech stacks.

Several factors are at play, but age is a key culprit. Many companies, especially early ecommerce adopters, still rely on payment systems built over a decade ago. Sure, they’ve layered modern features on top, but at their core, these systems were never designed for today’s fast-moving digital landscape.

You compare that to companies built for the digital age, such as Airbnb, Uber, and SHEIN. These companies prioritized payments from nearly day one, allowing them to expand globally without compromise and build new experiences with payments at their core. 

Another primary reason is short-term thinking. When businesses first started accepting online payments, they turned to the services supporting them in the physical world to do that. And honestly, you can’t blame them—modern payment providers were nonexistent or in their infancy. Plus, most companies didn’t have dedicated payment experts on staff back then.

The next question is: why don’t they just change it? 

They would if they could. The problem is that these systems have become overly complex and deeply integrated with other internal tools. Tearing them out and starting fresh is daunting and a massive, risky undertaking.

That’s why many companies have stuck with what they have, trying to patch it up—or simply throwing money at the issue.

Payments are a problem that cannot be ignored

The reality is that the longer businesses ignore issues with their payment stack, the more those problems escalate—and the risks are bigger than most business leaders realize.

At worst, the system could fail entirely, halting payments and causing severe revenue loss. But it doesn’t need to be a catastrophic event to hurt a business.

For example, even a subpar authorization rate can silently drain revenue over time, potentially causing more damage than a single outage. Or undetected fraud could slip through the cracks until it’s too late, with devastating financial consequences.

Another risk is that a business cannot capitalize on an opportunity, such as launching in a new market. I hear stories repeatedly about how a business's ambitious expansion plan is curtailed because it’ll take them six months or more to be ready to accept payments in those markets.  

Ironically, it’s usually only after a business faces one of these crises—what we call an “oh shit” moment—that they finally take action. We see it over and over. While it’s great to see companies stepping up after the fact, our advice is clear: don’t wait for disaster. 

Take control and act now.

What does good look like? 

Even when businesses are motivated to make a change, one of the biggest challenges I see is knowing what changes to make. 

There is no easy answer to this question. There is no blueprint for payments. Every business has different needs that require it to build a unique payment stack. That said, there are some core functionality that I believe every business must keep in mind.

Unified

The biggest challenge businesses face with their payment stack is that the services are often cobbled together inefficiently. This lack of standardization forces merchants to build complex, fragile logic in-house that’s far from optimal, frequently breaks, and limits access to payment data. The way forward, therefore, is to use a unified infrastructure to underpin the payment stack. It should act as an abstraction layer, allowing you to reason with payments once, no matter how many services you use on top of it.

Flexible

As I mentioned, every merchant’s payment stack is unique. Merchants need flexible technology to build the stack that suits their needs—not what a provider dictates. This means accessing the best payment services for each use case without compromise. But it goes beyond transactions—integrating the payment stack with other critical business systems to boost efficiency and unlock new value opportunities.

Scalable

Every technology a business adopts must be scalable, and payment solutions are no different. A robust payment system should address current needs and serve as a foundation for future growth. As businesses evolve, their payment requirements will inevitably shift. Market trends also change—who could have predicted five years ago that PIX would become Brazil’s top payment method? The ideal solution must be flexible enough to adapt to these changes without requiring expensive overhauls. This ensures long-term success, empowering businesses to innovate and expand without being limited by their payment infrastructure.

The time to get started was yesterday

79% of businesses acknowledge their payment systems need a major update or complete overhaul, and the choice is clear: act now. The risks of inaction are too significant, and the missed opportunities are even greater.

That said, I’d always advise caution.

Before making any changes, businesses must define clear goals for their payment systems—for today and the future. From there, it’s about crafting a roadmap to achieve those goals.

Take an iterative approach. With today’s technology, you don’t need to overhaul everything simultaneously. Start small, test with a portion of your payment traffic, and refine as you go. Remember, overhauling payment systems is like changing the wheels on a moving car—there’s no room for error. Even a minor slip could cost millions.

So, move forward strategically. Slow and steady wins, but progress is non-negotiable.

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