A payment processor is the company that handles the technical execution of a payment transaction. When a customer taps their card or submits their details online, it is the processor that routes the transaction data through the card network to the issuing bank, receives the authorisation response, and later facilitates the settlement of funds from the issuing bank to the acquiring bank and ultimately to the merchant’s account. Processors operate the rails on which electronic payments travel — they are the infrastructure behind the scenes of every card transaction.
There are two main categories: front-end processors and back-end processors. Front-end processors connect to card networks on behalf of acquiring banks and handle the real-time authorisation of transactions. Back-end processors handle settlement — the batch process of moving approved funds between banks at the end of each business day. Many large payment companies act as both front-end and back-end processors, but the distinction matters because authorisation speed and settlement timing are affected by different parts of the chain. A processor with fast authorisation but slow settlement still creates cash flow challenges for merchants.
Processor performance varies meaningfully across geographies, card types, and industries. A processor with strong domestic routing in the US may have poor authorisation rates for cross-border European transactions. A processor optimised for e-commerce may lack support for MOTO (mail order/telephone order) transaction types that contact centres require. These performance differences are not always visible to platforms at integration time — they emerge over time as transaction volumes grow and diversify.
Shuttle Global addresses this variability by abstracting the processor layer entirely. Platforms integrate with Shuttle’s unified API, and Shuttle handles the connection to over 40 processors and acquirers across multiple regions. This architecture enables intelligent routing — Shuttle can direct a transaction to the processor most likely to approve it based on the card’s issuing country, the transaction type, the currency, and historical performance data. If a processor experiences downtime or degraded approval rates, Shuttle can failover to an alternative. For platforms using Embedded Payments, Voice Checkout, or Payment Links, this means higher authorisation rates and greater resilience without managing multiple processor relationships directly.