Every processor.
Graded on evidence.

Tamara

BNPL Network

B-

Tamara is a buy now, pay later provider based in Riyadh. It serves businesses in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and holds a licence in Bahrain. Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Al Babtain founded it in 2020. Shoppers can pay in full, split a purchase into three or four interest-free payments, or take longer plans of up to 24 months that may carry a profit charge. The merchant is paid the full order value less Tamara's fee, and Tamara takes the shopper's credit and fraud risk on approved orders. In August 2026 Tamara reported more than 25 million customers and over 130,000 partner merchants. The Saudi Central Bank (SAMA) licensed its Saudi company, Tamara Finance, for consumer finance and buy now, pay later in early 2025 (the licence is dated February and SAMA announced it in March). That company's audited 2025 accounts show a net profit of SAR 193 million, after a loss in 2024. Tamara does not publish its merchant rates. Each merchant's fixed and variable fee is set in its onboarding form. Payouts go out weekly on Tuesdays. According to Tamara's merchant help docs, on the default plan they wait until your balance reaches SAR/AED 2,500, and on the weekly plan a payout under that amount costs SAR/AED 25. The published Merchant Terms let Tamara hold up to 75% of each weekly payout and release it monthly, raise fees on 10 days' notice, and end the agreement for any reason it deems necessary. Either side can leave on 60 days' notice.

Paymob

Payfac / Aggregator

B-

Paymob is a payment provider for businesses in Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman. Islam Shawky, Alain El Hajj and Mostafa Menessy started it in 2015 as students at the American University in Cairo. It signs merchants directly through local companies in each country and handles online card payments, payment links, subscriptions, instalments, mobile wallets and, in Egypt, card terminals. When it announced a $35 million pre-Series C round in September 2026, co-led by Mubadala and the EBRD, it said it serves more than 390,000 merchants across those four countries and that the Gulf now brings in close to half its revenue. Its UAE company is on the Central Bank of the UAE's register as a Category III retail payment services licensee, and it announced a full payment service provider licence from the Central Bank of Oman in January 2024. As of September 2026 its pricing pages list per-transaction rates in local currency: 2.75% + EGP 3 in Egypt, 2.9% + AED 1 in the UAE, and in Saudi Arabia 1% + SAR 1 on mada, 2.7% + SAR 1 on Visa and Mastercard and 3.5% + SAR 1 on international cards. Other Saudi pages show different card rates. Payouts are weekly in Egypt and the UAE and twice a week in Saudi Arabia. Read the country terms before you sign: the UAE terms tie you in for 24 months and add a monthly charge if you process less than AED 10,000. The UAE and Saudi terms both let Paymob withhold settlements and keep disputed amounts for 120 days or longer.

CardX

ISO

B

CardX is a US credit card surcharging service owned by Stax Payments. Jonathan Razi founded it in 2013, and Stax bought it in November 2021, when CardX had about 2,600 customers. It still trades as 'CardX by Stax' from Chicago. The idea is simple: when a customer pays by credit card, CardX adds a 3% surcharge that covers your processing cost, so on a $100 sale the customer pays $103 and you receive $100. Card-brand rules do not allow surcharges on debit cards, so CardX detects them, charges the customer nothing extra and charges you 1.25% + $0.25 instead. On top of that you pay a subscription that starts at $99 a month. As of September 2026 CardX publishes all of this on its pricing page, promises next-business-day funding and charges no cancellation fee; either side can end the service on 30 days' notice. CardX handles card-brand registration, signage, disclosures and receipts, but its terms leave legal responsibility for surcharging compliance with you. It does not serve businesses in Connecticut or Massachusetts. It says it serves Maine under unpublished terms, although Maine's statute says sellers may not surcharge card payments, and New York and Colorado law add extra conditions. CardX has an A+ rating from the BBB with no complaints, but almost no public customer reviews anywhere.

Unzer

Payfac / Aggregator

B-

Unzer is a German payments group that sells online payments, card terminals, cash-register software and white-label buy-now-pay-later to small and mid-sized merchants, mainly in Germany and Austria, with a Danish arm (Clearhaus and Quickpay) serving webshops in the Nordics. It began in 2003 as heidelpay, co-founded in Heidelberg by Mirko Hüllemann, grew through about a dozen acquisitions under private-equity owners AnaCap and then KKR, and took the Unzer name in September 2020. The group company, Unzer Group GmbH, is registered in Berlin. Merchants contract with Unzer Luxembourg S.A. (a CSSF-supervised payment institution) or Unzer E-Com GmbH (a BaFin-supervised payment institution in Heidelberg), with Unzer POS GmbH and Tillhub GmbH supplying terminals and till software. Unzer says it had €225.0 million of revenue and 90,000 merchants in 2025. As of September 2026 its English pricing page quotes online payments from 1.50% + €0.20 and in-store payments from 0.99% + €0.20, and its terminal shop lists the POS Go all-in-one till at €0 a month with card fees from 1.29%, but most real prices are set in a quote and the contract length is not published. The history matters: in 2022 BaFin fined Unzer E-Com €350,000 and banned it from taking on new customers over anti-money-laundering failings, and Luxembourg's CSSF fined Unzer Luxembourg €145,000. BaFin partly eased the ban in March 2024 and lifted it fully in October 2024. In 2023 KKR agreed to hand majority control to the company's lenders, according to press reports.

Tabby

BNPL Network

B-

Tabby is a buy now, pay later provider for businesses in Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Hosam Arab and Daniil Barkalov founded it in Dubai in 2019, and it is now headquartered in Riyadh. Shoppers split a purchase into four interest-free monthly payments, or into 6, 8 or 12 payments for bigger baskets. The merchant is paid the full amount less Tabby's fee and does not carry the shopper's credit or fraud risk. Tabby says it has been profitable since 2023. In its September 2026 funding announcement ($233 million at a $6.5 billion valuation, led by Blue Pool Capital and still subject to regulatory approval), it reported more than $18 billion in annualised transaction volume, 25 million registered users and 70,000 business partners. The Saudi Central Bank licensed Tabby Finance as a buy now, pay later company in November 2025 and granted it consumer and SME finance licences in June 2026. In the UAE, its Pay Later credit is provided by Tabby LLC and its Tabby Cash wallet runs under a Central Bank of the UAE Stored Value Facilities licence. Tabby publishes how its pricing works but not the rates. Each merchant gets a percentage commission set by industry and business profile, plus a fixed fee per successful order, both written into its contract. Payouts go out weekly on Mondays, with a payout fee of AED/SAR 6, or AED/SAR 25 on payouts under 2,500. The published UAE Merchant Terms (v2.0.0, 17 July 2026) let Tabby impose a reserve held for 180 days or longer and withhold settlements. Either side can walk away on 30 days' notice.

PayU (India)

Payfac / Aggregator

B-

PayU India is the Indian payment gateway of Prosus, the Amsterdam-listed technology group majority owned by Naspers. According to PayU's own timeline the gateway was launched in 2011 by ibibo, the Naspers-backed Indian internet group, and demerged from it as PayU India in 2014; it bought Citrus Pay in 2016 and the card-authentication company Wibmo in 2019, and is run by Anirban Mukherjee, who became global PayU chief executive in October 2023. This review covers PayU India only: Prosus agreed in 2023 to sell PayU's businesses outside India, Turkey and South-East Asia to Rapyd for US$610 million, Rapyd completed the Latin American and African part in March 2025, and PayU sites in other countries are different companies with different terms. The contracting entity, PayU Payments Private Limited of Gurugram, received final RBI authorisation as an online payment aggregator in May 2025 and, according to November 2025 press reports, an integrated authorisation covering online, offline and cross-border payments. That came after the RBI returned its first application in January 2023 and PayU stopped onboarding new online merchants until it announced in-principle approval in April 2024. As of September 2026 PayU's pricing page lists 2% for domestic Visa and Mastercard cards, net banking, BNPL and wallets and 3% for Diners, American Express, EMI and international transactions, plus 18% GST, with no setup fee and T+2 standard settlement. UPI, priority settlement, POS and detailed international pricing are quoted, not published. The trade-offs are terms that let PayU hold settlements, demand reserves and keep funds for 210 business days after termination, and weak public merchant feedback.

Wisetack

BNPL Network

B+

Wisetack is a San Francisco company, founded in 2018, that lets service businesses offer their customers monthly payments on jobs such as an HVAC replacement, a roof, a transmission repair or a dental treatment plan. It is not the lender. The loans come from its bank partners, which its lending-partners page listed in September 2026 as Hatch Bank, U.S. Bank and Happen Bank, the new name since June 2026 of LendingClub Bank. Wisetack runs the application, the offers and the merchant relationship, and the business signs Wisetack's merchant agreement. For home-services businesses the merchant cost is published and simple: a flat 3.9% of the financed amount, with no setup or subscription fee, unless the business opts into extended 0% APR plans, which cost 4.9%, 6.9% or 9.9% when a customer picks one of those offers. Customers see offers from 0% to 35.9% APR on terms of 3 to 120 months, on jobs from $500 to $65,000 in home services and up to $15,000 in auto, dental, medical and veterinary. The business is paid by ACH once the customer confirms the work is done, landing in 1 to 3 business days. Wisetack is built into Housecall Pro, Jobber and, by its own count, more than 30 other field-service platforms. Consumer ratings are split: 4.8 out of 5 from 936 Trustpilot reviews on a profile where Wisetack invites customers to review, against 1.23 out of 5 from 31 BBB reviews and 25 BBB complaints in three years.

Cantaloupe

Payfac / Aggregator

B-

Cantaloupe is the Malvern, Pennsylvania company behind the ePort card readers found on vending machines, arcades, laundromats and car-wash vacuums, plus Cantaloupe Go micro-market kiosks, smart stores and the Seed route-management software. The company was incorporated in 1992 as USA Technologies and renamed Cantaloupe in April 2021. It is no longer independent: 365 Retail Markets, a Providence Equity portfolio company, completed its roughly $848 million purchase on 8 May 2026 and took it off Nasdaq. As of September 2026 Cantaloupe still sells under its own name, with its own store, pricing and support lines, and 365 has told customers that products, pricing and agreements are not changing for now. Operators sign Cantaloupe's Master Services Agreement and become sub-merchants under its processing relationship, so Cantaloupe collects the card money and pays it out weekly, after deducting its fees. Standard card-reader pricing is published: a reader kit bought outright (from $329 in the online store) carries a $9.95 or $12.95 monthly service fee and 5.95% of each card sale, on a 12-month commitment. One third-party guide reports a 10-cent per-transaction fee on top, which no Cantaloupe page shows. Readers can also be rented through Cantaloupe One from $18.95 a month with no upfront cost, but that is a 36-month commitment and the 5.95% still applies. It is one of the largest unattended-payments providers, with 1.30 million active devices and 36,928 active customers in its last public filing (March 2026); Nayax, which we also review, reports about 1.55 million devices worldwide. Its record is weak, though: an SEC accounting-fraud settlement over fiscal 2017–2018 revenue, a D- BBB rating with 40 complaints in three years, and recurring complaints about activation delays, missed deposits and service fees billed on devices operators believed were cancelled.

PayMongo

Payfac / Aggregator

B

PayMongo is a Philippine online payments company, launched in June 2019 by Francis Plaza, Luis Sia and Jaime Hing III as the first Filipino-owned fintech to go through Y Combinator, and headquartered in Bonifacio Global City, Taguig. It lets a business accept cards, GCash, Maya, GrabPay, ShopeePay, QR Ph, direct online banking and BillEase pay-later through one account, via payment links, hosted checkout, e-commerce plugins, an API and a printed in-store QR Ph code. Stripe led its US$12 million Series A in 2020 and was among its seed investors, but Stripe is an investor, not the owner: PayMongo is independent and run since February 2023 by chief executive Jojo Malolos, who took over from an interim chief executive after the founders left during a 2022 leadership upheaval, and who says the company has been net-income positive since November 2025. Merchants sign PayMongo's own Terms of Use with PayMongo Philippines, Inc., a BSP-registered operator of payment systems, and PayMongo Payments, Inc., a BSP-supervised e-money issuer that runs the PayMongo Wallet payouts land in. As of September 2026 the published rates, all before 12% VAT, are 3.125% + ₱13.39 for domestic cards, 4.02% + ₱13.39 for international cards, 1.34% for QR Ph, 2.23% for GCash and 1.70% to 1.96% for other wallets, with no setup or monthly fee. The trade-offs are slow default payouts (weekly, with cards clearing in three banking days), no card terminal or Tap to Pay, and terms that let PayMongo suspend accounts without notice and withhold settlement over pending or anticipated chargebacks.