Checkout.com Named a Leader by Global Analyst Firm as It Bets on Agentic Commerce and Grows US Business

WHY THIS MATTERS: The designation of a firm as a sector Leader is a powerful signal that the global payment infrastructure landscape is shifting its focus from volume to measurable performance. Receiving the highest possible rating for Merchant Experience directly speaks to the core competitive battleground for high-volume e-commerce—optimizing authorization rates and minimizing friction. For major brands, this translates into immediate revenue upside. Furthermore, the company’s 2026 strategic roadmap reveals an aggressive intent to scale its operations in the United States, utilizing its recent limited purpose bank charter to pivot toward direct acquiring and roll out integrated issuing services. This move challenges entrenched domestic players and confirms that the future of enterprise payments hinges on a consolidated, high-performing platform that abstracts away complexity while expanding the available features for sophisticated merchants.

Checkout.com announced it has been named a “Leader” in the Forrester Wave™: Merchant Payment Providers, Q1 2026 report.

Forrester’s report evaluates the most significant merchant payment providers and provides a clear measure of each provider’s capabilities so merchants can select the best fit for their specific business needs.

Recognized as a leader in Forrester’s evaluation, Checkout.com was the only vendor to receive the highest score possible in the Merchant Experience criterion. The report noted that the company’s core strength was “getting maximum performance from the payment methods it supports.” Checkout.com was also cited for growing its US business after receiving a license under the US merchant acquirer limited purpose bank charter.

“We believe being named a Leader reflects the relentless focus of our product and technology teams over the last 24 months to deliver the best possible experiences and performance for our merchants,” comments Meron Colbeci, Chief Product Officer at Checkout.com. “And while it’s humbling to be recognised by industry analyst firms, it’s the day to day interaction and feedback from our customers that gives our teams the energy and focus to continue to innovate.”

Over the past two years, Checkout.com has strengthened its performance capabilities, expanded its acquiring footprint to support merchants as they grow into new markets, developed its modular services, and overhauled their analytics suite so merchants have a complete oversight of the entire payments lifecycle.

Looking ahead, Checkout.com’s 2026 roadmap will focus on several key areas. The company will continue building for agentic commerce by creating a connective layer across emerging protocols, schemes, and AI platforms. 

Checkout.com will also move toward direct acquiring in the US and begin to process card payments later this year. A new platforms service for marketplaces and ISVs is also in development, launching first in the US.  Finally, Checkout will begin rolling out its issuing capabilities to merchants in the UAE and US, continue investing in other financial experiences, open banking and stablecoins.

“The future is exciting, but our job remains the same. We’re here to help businesses thrive in the digital economy by abstracting away the complexity of payments, so they can focus on growing their business,” concludes Colbeci.

Checkout.com recently announced its return to full-year EBITDA profitability and a 30% increase in net revenue after processing over $300 billion in ecommerce in 2025 for global brands like Uber, Spotify, eBay, Temu, Pinterest, HelloFresh, ASOS, Vinted and many more.

FF NEWS TAKE: This accolade validates that the company has successfully completed its strategic pivot to full-year profitability and is now re-entering an ambitious growth phase. The combination of a top-tier customer experience score and a $300 billion processing volume is a clear threat to competitors. This announcement fundamentally moves the needle by dramatically increasing the competitive intensity for platform services and direct acquiring in the US. The next critical steps to monitor will be the real-world deployment of their new US marketplace platform and the promised issuing capabilities, confirming whether they can truly execute on becoming a comprehensive global payment stack.