Earnings Reveal New Race to Control the Merchant Stack

For years, merchant services centered on moving money from cardholder to business.  The current earnings season gives proof that business has become far broader, encompassing everything from payments to back-office efficiency.

Across quarterly updates from Block, PayPal, Shopify and Fiserv, executives described merchants grappling with rising operating complexity, fragmented sales channels and pressure to keep customers engaged while managing costs.

The common thread running through the results was that many businesses still want direct relationships and operational support, even as commerce becomes automated and software-driven. The growth revolves around who can become embedded in a merchant’s daily operations.

Small and mid-sized businesses, particularly those managing both physical and digital storefronts, often lack the internal technology resources to stitch together payments, marketing, payroll and financing systems on their own.

Fiserv, for example, used its first-quarter results to emphasize what executives described as a broader operating platform strategy with Clover as a key anchor. Clover gross payment volume rose 12% excluding gateway conversion impacts. Executives also pointed to healthcare and professional services initiatives, along with efforts tied to AI-powered merchant development tools.

During the earnings call, CEO Mike Lyons said businesses want providers that can combine payments, software and workflow management rather than offering isolated products. He also told analysts that Fiserv was “expanding Clover into other verticals such as healthcare and professional services” while deepening capabilities around payroll, accounts payable and software tools for merchants.

PayPal’s results showed a similar effort to broaden merchant relationships beyond checkout. The company reorganized its business into three segments, including a division focused specifically on payment processing and value-added services.

Executives described merchants as seeking integrated tools that can improve conversion rates, deepen customer relationships and simplify increasingly global commerce operations. PayPal said payment services provider volume growth accelerated to 11%, while enterprise payment volume increased in the mid-teens. The company also pointed to demand for buy now, pay later options and digital wallet adoption among consumers.

Moving Further Into Operations

The earnings reports also highlighted a broader change underway in merchant services: Providers are attempting to become operating systems for commerce rather than utilities sitting behind transactions.

Shopify’s quarter illustrated how deeply software, payments and merchant management have become intertwined.

President Harley Finkelstein framed the company’s role as helping merchants manage growing complexity across commerce channels. Executives also repeatedly discussed AI tools designed to assist merchants with automation, marketing and operational management. Shopify said merchants built more than 12,000 custom applications using Sidekick during the quarter.

Block CEO Jack Dorsey described a strategy in which AI tools move from passive assistants to systems that actively help merchants identify operational issues before they worsen. The company’s Managerbot product, aimed at sellers, is designed to identify issues such as rising food costs or staffing inefficiencies.

That dynamic has encouraged providers to bundle more services together.

Fiserv highlighted Clover Capital as one of the growth drivers inside its merchant business.

Shopify’s filings showed the degree to which merchant financing has become embedded in platform economics. The company reported loans and merchant cash advances of $2.1 billion on its balance sheet at the end of the quarter, up from $1.8 billion at year-end 2025. That increase reflected continued expansion of Shopify Capital as merchants seek working capital tied directly to sales activity flowing through the platform.

Executives made clear that lending is becoming part of a broader merchant-retention strategy. Shopify’s Finkelstein said on the earnings call that the company wants to “absorb more of that complexity into our systems and become more valuable to merchants.” In practice, that often includes financing, payments, logistics and operational software delivered through one ecosystem.

Block provided further evidence that merchant lending remains a key offering. In its 10-Q filing, commercial lending tied to Square sellers remains a substantial balance-sheet business. Commercial loans held for investment totaled $456.9 million at the end of the quarter.

Taken together, the earnings reports suggested that merchant lending is no longer being treated as a standalone business line. Providers view credit as part of the broader infrastructure tying merchants to their ecosystems. The more deeply financing becomes embedded into payments flows, payroll management, customer analytics and software operations, the more difficult it becomes for merchants to separate one provider from another.

Ecosystems Become Retention Tools

The earnings reports also suggested that merchant ecosystems are becoming central to customer retention strategies.

Rather than scaling transaction by transaction, providers increasingly want merchants operating within closed loops of software, financial products and customer engagement tools. The deeper the integration, the harder it becomes for businesses to leave.

Block’s Neighborhoods initiative illustrated this strategy particularly clearly. The company said sellers representing $320 million in annualized gross payment volume had joined the loyalty and rewards platform by March. The service ties Square sellers directly to Cash App consumers through rewards and local promotions.

PayPal similarly pointed to its “two-sided network” strategy connecting merchants and consumers across checkout, wallets and payment services. Shopify stressed that merchants are relying on the company not just for storefront creation but for logistics, analytics, customer acquisition and operational management.

The broader message is this: Merchant services firms are trying to cement loyalty by becoming indispensable to daily business operations. Payments remain the foundation, but the surrounding services increasingly determine the ecosystem’s expansion.