In reply to joelhfx.

A processor carries much more weight than a payment gateway and the generic term payment provider covers both circumstances. Pymnts.com has a tendency (case in point: http://ow.ly/Bw937) of making over dramatic statements.

The entry points for PayPal into Apple Pay are its legacy Payflow and acquired Braintree solutions; neither of which carries a fraction of payments volume that the initial 6 providers have.

The article is trying to make this a bigger deal than it really is and using the term processor versus payment provider is an example of that.