What do business leaders really think about payments?

Payments used to be something you set up once and rarely thought about again. Today, they’re becoming a much more strategic business concern.

To understand how businesses are thinking about payments today, we surveyed 150 executives and senior business leaders, including CEOs and Product and Engineering leads, across digital-native companies in the UK, US, and Australia. 

We wanted to hear their perspective: what concerns them most, where they’re investing, and whether they believe their current payment setup is ready for the future.

Their answers reveal a clear shift in mindset. Business leaders increasingly see payments as something that deserves strategic attention, yet many aren’t convinced their current setup is ready for what’s next.

Here are the five findings that stood out most.

1. Payments have become a strategic priority

When we asked business leaders about their priorities for the next 12 months, strengthening risk management and fraud prevention, improving customer experience, enhancing technology and automation, improving operational efficiency, and expanding into new markets all ranked highly.

Payments influence all of them. They shape how customers experience a brand, how effectively businesses manage fraud, how easily they enter new markets, and ultimately how much revenue they capture.

Given that, it’s no surprise, then, that 71% of business leaders told us payments are very important to achieving their business goals. The remaining 29% said they’re somewhat important.

That reflects a broader shift in how businesses think about payments. They are increasingly viewed as a strategic capability that supports growth, manages risk, and helps businesses compete more effectively.

2. Fraud is the most-cited concern, ahead of cost

For a long time, the conversation around payments centered on cost. Lower processing fees were often seen as the primary objective.

But as payments become a bigger focus for business leaders, they’re taking a broader view of what success looks like.

When we asked them to rank the three factors that matter most when accepting payments, fraud and chargeback prevention came out on top.

54% included reducing fraud and chargebacks in their top three priorities, just ahead of cost and processing fees at 51%.

That doesn’t mean costs matter any less. It suggests leaders increasingly recognize that payment performance is shaped by more than fees alone. Fraud, approval rates, customer experience, reliability, and payment method coverage all influence commercial outcomes.

Fraud captures that shift better than almost anything else. It’s one of the few areas where getting the balance wrong hurts the business either way. Controls that are too loose increase fraud losses. Controls that are too strict block legitimate customers and reduce conversion.

3. Most businesses use multiple payment processors, but operational challenges remain

That broader view is reflected in how businesses are building their payment infrastructure.

Running a single payment processor has become the exception rather than the rule. 

Only 5% of the business leaders we surveyed said their company relies on a single processor, while the average is close to three.

Businesses are adding processors to reduce costs, improve approval rates, strengthen customer support, reduce the risk of downtime, expand into new markets, and offer more payment methods.

Yet despite that investment, operational challenges remain. 

Nearly four in ten business leaders told us they’ve experienced processor downtime or service outages. The same proportion reported high processing fees, while others pointed to poor customer support, limited payment options, withheld funds, and low payment success rates.

The findings suggest that adding more payment processors isn’t enough on its own. Businesses have invested to improve performance, but many are still dealing with the very challenges they set out to solve.

4. More than half don’t think their current payment setup is future-ready

Perhaps that’s why so many business leaders are already questioning whether their current payment setup is ready for what’s next.

56% of leaders agree their current payment setup won't meet their business needs 12 months from now.

That doesn’t necessarily mean their payment setup is failing today. It suggests many businesses already recognize its limitations and expect those limitations to become more apparent as they grow.

Some of this is inevitable. Growing businesses outgrow systems. But there’s a difference between replacing a setup because you’ve planned for growth and replacing it because growth has exposed its limits.

The rest of the findings help explain why so many leaders feel that way. Payments have become more important to the business. Success isn't measured by cost alone. Businesses are managing more processors than ever before, yet many still experience downtime, high fees, and other operational challenges.

Viewed together, it’s not hard to see why so many are already questioning whether today’s payment setup will support tomorrow’s business.

5. Businesses are investing in payment expertise

As businesses place greater importance on payments, they’re also changing who owns them.

83% of business leaders told us they plan to hire a dedicated payments specialist or team within the next 12 months.

In many businesses, payments remain a shared responsibility across engineering, finance, and product. They’re often owned by everyone and no one. Carving out a dedicated role is how companies signal that a function has grown too important to leave as a part-time responsibility. 

It’s also a recognition that payments have become more complex. Supporting new markets, managing fraud, improving approval rates, controlling costs, and delivering a better customer experience all require continuous attention. For many businesses, that’s no longer something that can be managed alongside another role.

The pattern underneath the numbers

Taken together, the findings show that business leaders increasingly recognize the role payments play across the business. That’s changing how they invest in people, technology, and payment infrastructure.

Yet despite those investments, more than half of business leaders don’t believe their current payment setup will meet their needs 12 months from now.

That may be the clearest finding of all. The challenge isn't simply choosing the right payment providers. It’s building a payment setup that can adapt as the business grows and its priorities evolve.

At Primer, we help businesses manage payments as one connected system rather than a collection of separate tools. If your current setup is already showing its limits, we’d love to show you what’s possible.

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