Go down the payments rabbit hole - with guides who know the way!

Serving Banks, ISOs, PayFacs, ISVs and Complex Merchants

Wes Shattler - Senior Partner, PCI Services at Payments Therapy
Wes Shattler
Senior Partner, PCI Services
Jason Kafer - Managing Partner & Founder of Payments Therapy
Jason Kafer
Managing Partner & Founder

This isn't a project. It's a partnership.

Payments Therapy Programs

Support for every stage of a payments problem — from early symptoms to critical care.

Couch Sessions

Expert guidance, without the heavy lifting.

Couch Sessions is a good fit if you don't need a full engagement, but you do need a trusted payments expert to talk things through.

It's ideal for founders, product leaders, and teams who are navigating decisions, sanity-checking approaches, or trying to get unstuck — without asking someone to take over the work. If you want smart, fast answers and a reliable sounding board, this is the place to start.

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Treatment Plan

Designed to uncover root causes and fix what's actually broken.

The Treatment Plan is built for companies dealing with complex, interconnected payment problems that won't be solved in a few conversations.

If you know the issue you're seeing is only part of a bigger picture — or if progress keeps stalling because everything touches everything else — this program gives you the time, access, and depth needed to untangle it properly and build something that actually holds up.

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Intensive Care

For payment problems that can't wait.

Intensive Care is for urgent, high-stakes payment situations where something is actively breaking, at risk, or under external pressure.

If processors, banks, networks, or revenue are involved — and waiting is not an option — this program provides focused, customized support to stabilize the situation and create a path forward. This is not a template or a fixed scope; it's hands-on help when the consequences are real.

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PCI Readiness

PCI Readiness

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Whether you're tackling PCI for the first time or adapting to the new 4.0.1 controls that took effect April 1, 2025, we'll help you get compliant without the confusion.

One of our greatest strengths? We know the QSA landscape inside and out. We've built strong, long-term relationships with assessors who understand the payments world.

And if you're always in a rush to get things over the finish line at the eleventh hour? We can help you stop that cycle, too.

Software Security

Software Security

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We've built and successfully exited payments software, and we've been the trusted advisor to VCs and private equity firms conducting deep-dive technical due diligence on payments tech acquisitions. We've also seen what happens when security gets treated like a "later" problem—and we're here to make sure you don't end up paying that price.

If you're building, our job is to help you architect it right from the start. That means designing for PCI compliance, anticipating third-party audits, and building the kind of security controls that won't just get you through QSA reviews—they'll stand up when a buyer kicks the tires.

If you're buying, we act as your due diligence hit squad. We'll dissect the codebase, comb through security policies, evaluate design patterns, and pressure-test the overall system architecture.

Interchange & Card Network Optimization

Interchange & Card Network Optimization

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If your margins are shrinking and nobody can explain why, the answer may be hiding inside the transaction data.

We look at the transaction data, the qualification rules, the fees, and the technical implementation to isolate where margin is leaking and determine what can actually be fixed.

Because sometimes the pricing agreement is not the problem. Sometimes the transactions simply are not qualifying the way everyone thinks they are.

Fraud and Chargeback Reduction

Fraud and Chargeback Reduction

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Fraud and chargebacks have a way of creeping up on you—everything runs fine until, suddenly, it doesn't.

We don't believe in quick fixes or expensive alert services that paper over deeper issues. Our approach is to get to the root cause.

Our solutions aren't Band-Aids—they're long-term, technical, and compliance-backed strategies that prevent chargebacks before they happen.

Specialties

Things We're Just Really Good At!

You get our full team, on tap, with one goal: to help you solve hard payments problems and design better systems.

Forensic Accounting

Forensic Accounting

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Margins disappearing into thin air? KPIs shifting without a clear cause? Whether you're an acquiring bank trying to unwind an ISO or TPS FBO account, an ISO watching your profits quietly slip away, an ISV double-checking your residuals, or a high-volume merchant spotting anomalies in your processing metrics—we've seen it all, and we know where to look.

We dive into the weeds most folks avoid: card brand fees, NACHA files, interchange, dues and assessments, and yes—even those cryptic, clunky residual reports that make your eyes glaze over. We untangle financial data across the entire payments stack to uncover misalignments, identify leakage, and flag errors others miss. This isn't just accounting—it's CSI for your payment flows.

Our forensic work turns confusion into clarity, giving you the leverage to renegotiate, restructure, or reclaim what's rightfully yours. If the money trail is murky, consider us your flashlight.

Technical Integrations & Data Files

Technical Integrations & Data Files

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From TSYS (our home turf) to Fiserv, VISA to MasterCard, and even your cousin's homegrown platform that hasn't seen a QA test since 2012—if it moves money or moves data, we know how to make it work.

Need to generate clearing and settlement files that don't sabotage your interchange qualifications? We'll help you structure them cleanly and accurately so your rates stay sharp and your operations don't trip over themselves.

We speak fluent payments protocol, decode cryptic processor docs like bedtime stories, and actually enjoy debugging file formats.

AI & Automation

AI & Automation

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Payments data is everywhere—and nowhere all at once. It's buried in legacy systems, stuck in PDFs, locked behind proprietary APIs, and scattered across platforms that don't talk to each other.

We help eliminate the madness. Our team knows where to find the data, what to ask for, and how to transform it into clean, actionable insights.

The result? Your ops and tech teams get their time back, and you finally have a system that scales with your business instead of dragging it down.

Acquiring & Third Party Sender Programs

Acquiring & Third Party Sender Programs

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Whether you're a bank looking to launch an acquiring or Third Party Sender program, or an organization aiming to become one, there's a maze of regulatory and operational complexity waiting for you.

For banks, we build the foundation—policies, procedures, and governance frameworks that satisfy your obligations to the card brands and Nacha.

If you're on the other side—an ISO or a Third Party Sender looking to launch—we help you get the green light.

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