Private equity firms often have significant payments volume spread across portfolio companies, processors, gateways, contracts, and pricing models. The processors may understand that payments footprint better than the sponsor does. That can hide leverage, duplication, cost, risk, and monetization opportunities.

The Visa debit antitrust fight raises a bigger payments strategy question: what actually competes with a Visa debit transaction? The answer matters for routing, Durbin, pay-by-bank, alternative rails, network economics, and the platforms deciding how money moves.

Gross payments revenue can look fantastic right up until interchange, network fees, processor costs, fraud losses, chargebacks, support, compliance, reserves, and operational overhead show up. ISVs and platforms need to understand the full cost stack before they celebrate payments revenue that may not actually be as profitable as it looks.

ISVs with brilliant software often get suckered into payments partnerships that feel more like messy divorces than profitable ventures. Before you get hitched, here's your prenup—aka everything you need to know about choosing the right payments partner.