Processing has been commoditised for years.
Every major PSP offers roughly the same core capability. Accept cards. Settle funds. Provide a dashboard. The margins are thin and getting thinner.
The PSPs that win the next decade won't win on processing. They'll win on distribution.
And most of them don't have a distribution strategy for where commerce is actually heading.
The distribution problem
PSPs have historically distributed through two channels: direct sales and developer adoption.
Direct sales works for enterprise merchants with dedicated payments teams. Developer adoption works for startups and SMBs building their first checkout flow.
Neither works for the fastest-growing segment of payment volume: software platforms.
Platforms own the workflow. They control the merchant relationship. They decide which payment providers their customers can access. And increasingly, they're the ones building the payment experience, not the merchant.
If a PSP isn't embedded inside the platform where the merchant operates, that PSP is invisible.
This is already happening. CCaaS platforms are embedding payments into voice workflows. Insurance platforms are embedding payments into policy management. ERP systems are embedding payments into invoicing. AI agents are embedding payments into conversations.
The payment moment is moving inside software. And PSPs need a way to follow it there.
Why PSPs can't solve this alone
The obvious answer is: PSPs should build platform integrations themselves. Offer APIs. Create partnerships. Get embedded.
Some are trying. The challenge is scale.
There are thousands of software platforms across dozens of verticals. Each has its own integration requirements, compliance context, and channel mix. A PSP building one-to-one integrations with every platform that matters will never keep pace.
And there's a deeper structural issue. Platforms don't want to be locked into a single PSP. Their enterprise customers demand provider choice. A platform that integrates directly with Worldpay still needs to support Adyen for the next customer, and their regional acquirer for the one after that.
PSPs competing for direct integration slots inside platforms are playing a zero-sum game. The platform can only maintain so many direct integrations. Every slot a PSP wins is a slot another one loses.
That's the wrong game entirely.
The layer changes the math
What if PSPs didn't need to build and maintain individual platform integrations?
What if there was a distribution layer that already sat inside platforms, already supported the channels those platforms operate in, and already handled the compliance burden?
That's what a multi-PSP payment layer creates. Not routing logic. Not failover. Distribution infrastructure.
Shuttle connects to 40+ PSPs and sits inside platforms across voice, links, chat, and embedded checkout. When a platform integrates Shuttle, every connected PSP gains access to that platform's merchants without building a custom integration.
The math changes fundamentally. Instead of building one-to-one integrations with platforms, a PSP connects to Shuttle once and gains distribution across every platform on the layer.
For the PSP, Shuttle isn't a competitor. It's a distribution channel. The PSP keeps the merchant relationship, the processing revenue, and the commercial terms. Shuttle provides the rail that gets the PSP into the platform in the first place.
The channels that matter next
Distribution isn't just about being inside platforms. It's about being inside the right channels.
Voice is one of the fastest-growing payment surfaces. AI voice agents are handling sales calls, insurance claims, and service bookings. Every one of those conversations can include a payment moment. The PSP that's connected to the voice payment layer captures that volume. The one that isn't, doesn't.
Payment links are another. Platforms are sending branded checkout links via SMS, email, and chat. It's not ecommerce. It's operational commerce. Invoice collection, appointment deposits, service payments. High volume, high frequency, and entirely controlled by the platform.
These channels didn't exist five years ago. They're growing faster than traditional checkout. And they require infrastructure that most PSPs haven't built for.
A PSP that's connected to a multi-channel payment layer is present wherever commerce happens. A PSP that's only distributed through direct sales and developer docs is limited to wherever merchants actively choose to implement them.
The strategic question
For PSPs evaluating their distribution strategy, the question is straightforward:
Where are your merchants going to be in three years? Inside platforms. Inside AI agents. Inside voice and chat flows.
Are you going to build individual integrations with every platform that matters? Or connect to the layer that's already there?
Stripe is building up the stack, trying to own more of the merchant relationship. That's one strategy.
Shuttle is building sideways across the stack, connecting PSPs to the platforms and channels where commerce is moving. That's a different strategy. And for PSPs that want to maintain their merchant relationships while gaining embedded distribution, it's the one that scales.
The leverage lives in the layer. The PSPs that understand distribution as an infrastructure problem, not a sales problem, will be the ones still growing when processing margins hit zero.
Related Reading
The First Agentic Payments Went Live — What the infrastructure looks like behind Razorpay's live agentic payments
The Payment Layer for AI Agents — Why AI agents need a payment layer, not a payment provider
Why Platforms Don't Want to Be Payment Companies — The PayFac trap and why platforms need a payment layer instead
Agentic Commerce — The hub for agentic commerce and AI-driven payment infrastructure
Agentic Payments Infrastructure in 2026 — The full landscape of agentic payment infrastructure
The Voice AI Payment Infrastructure Gap — Why voice AI companies can't solve payments alone
Embedded Payments for CCaaS — How contact centre platforms are embedding payments into voice workflows