Checkout.com

Checkout.com is a London acquirer and gateway built by Guillaume Pousaz, who launched the business as Opus Payments in 2009 and relaunched it under the Checkout.com name in 2012. It sells to larger digital-first merchants rather than small shops, and its published client list has included Netflix, eBay, Uber Eats, Vinted and several of the biggest crypto exchanges.

What separates it from most gateways is that it holds its own acquiring licences instead of routing everything through a sponsor bank. Direct licences cover the UK, the EEA, parts of APAC and the MENAP region, while US volume runs on a MALPB charter with two sponsor banks. The company reports 57 domestic processing countries, over 150 processing currencies and roughly 20 settlement currencies. Cards run to Visa, Mastercard, American Express, JCB, Diners Club, Discover, Maestro and Cartes Bancaires. Local coverage is deepest in the Gulf, where mada, KNET, Benefit, QPay, OmanNET, stc pay, Tabby and Tamara sit next to European methods such as iDEAL, Bancontact, Sofort, BLIK, Bizum, Multibanco, Swish, Vipps, MobilePay and TWINT, plus Asian wallets including GCash, KakaoPay, Touch 'n Go, TrueMoney, DANA, Octopus and both Alipay variants.

No rates are published. Merchants are quoted individually, either on a flat rate set by business profile and risk category or on interchange++, where scheme, interchange and processor costs are itemised. Checkout.com says it levies no setup or account maintenance fees, and processes free of charge for registered charities in the markets where it operates.

Settlement is quoted at T+2 for major currencies and T+3 or longer for the rest, with daily, weekly, twice-monthly or monthly payout runs. The company will underwrite iGaming and crypto merchants that many acquirers turn away, though those sectors go through additional due diligence. Onboarding is sales-led, so there is no self-serve sign-up and smaller merchants are generally out of scope.