As the technology behind payments processing accelerates, it’s also reshaping how merchants need to think about the ways their customers pay. Increasingly, acquirers are discovering that by focusing on areas like reconciliation and streamlining the payments workflow, they can build stronger relationships—not only with their customers, but also with their employees.

In a PaymentsJournal podcast, Highnote’s Chief Revenue Officer, TJ Grissom, and James Wester, Co-Head of Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research, to explore how Highnote is helping drive the unification of the payments workflow and the benefits this trend is bringing to retailers and other payment acquirers.

Most merchants just want to run their business. They care a great deal about the business side of things, but not so much about the payment side. That can make it difficult for payment vendors to know which features to highlight, because at the end of the day, the acquirer is primarily concerned with simply being able to accept a payment.

Once they’re confident in that, merchants are more willing to explore which bells and whistles might be right for them. And when they take the time to learn more about the process, they often discover the many ways payment solutions can positively impact their bottom line.

“There’s been an awful lot in the press lately about what core payments really look like,” said Grissom. “The word ‘ledger’ has popped up in payments more in the last three years than it probably had in the previous 50. The core understanding of what true reconciliation looks like—being able to track a payment through its entire lifecycle—has just jumped off the page. We are seeing tremendous value in modern platforms—like what we’ve built at Highnote—that bring to bear a truly unified payment lifecycle.”

As a result, merchants are viewing payments not just as a mechanism to grow revenue, but also as a means to create stickiness—with their customer, their vendors, and even their own employees. They’re seeing payments as a way to bring cohesion to every step of their value chain.

“When we speak with merchants, we think they’re going to start by saying, ‘Let’s talk about core acquiring and the issues we want to resolve on that front,’” said Grissom. “It’s incredible how quickly it turns into, ‘I have a consumer issue that I want to target as well,’ or ‘I have an employee issue.’ By bringing a more unified platform to bear, the conversation quickly switches from money in to money out.”

Of course, the predominant concern remains cost, which varies for every customer. They each consider it from different angles and paradigms. But they all want two things. First, to reduce the core cost of payment acceptance. Second, to minimize the opportunity cost.

“If you’re not closing the payments loop rapidly enough or getting your money settled quickly enough, it’s costing you in many other areas,” said Grissom. “It’s not only costing you in core time to money, it’s costing you in experiences.”

Customers are starting to broaden their understanding of what that opportunity cost entails. There is a real loss in not having payments operate as efficiently as possible.

“We used to not be able to do a whole lot with the settlement—it was just cost,” said Wester. “Now vendors can do something to influence that. You begin to see different parties that might not have been at the table from an acquirer standpoint when they’re talking to a merchant. It’s no longer just an accounting function. It might be a treasury function, or a customer facing discussion.”

More merchants are viewing their acquired revenue stream as an asset that can help them address other challenges. They’re seeking opportunities to use payments to make the ecosystem work more efficiently.

“I love the example of restaurant ecosystem with its fully integrated vertical SaaS solutions,” said Grissom. “15 years ago, solution providers in this space were doing incredible work to acquire funds for you and give you lines of credit and working capital because they had direct insight into your business. We can do that in a really low-risk way.”

That was the first big step in the direction of seeing the payment process as a cohesive solution, which has since expanded to other use cases. One of the biggest problems in the restaurant space is retention of talent, especially servers. Now, they have found ways to use payment assets to create stickiness within their own employee base. It makes a difference when a restaurant can pay out tips in real time—directly onto an open-loop card that employees can use on their way home—enabled by embedded capabilities Highnote makes possible.

With modern platforms that can be built out, payments can be customized—not just for the hospitality industry or types of restaurants, but even tailored to the individual restaurant itself, based on what that particular owner wants to do with the point of sale.

The bottom line for merchants is clear: they no longer have to settle for limited payment options.

“You can’t build what we’re talking about on legacy infrastructure, and you certainly can’t build it by trying to piece together four or five different providers across these different veins,” said Grissom. “Take a step back and ask: If you had your preference, how would this entire lifecycle work? What value could you bring? What operational inefficiencies could you get rid of by bringing more cohesive solutions to market?

“As the person acquiring those funds, you do have the power. You’re the one with the leverage and you should press to understand the value that your providers can bring to the table for you.”

Two decades ago, acquirers were primarily focused on reducing the total cost of payment acceptance. The main value-add was simplifying the process and proving transparency around fees-just knowing what you were paying was a win.

Today, however, the value equation has changed. Beyond just price, merchants can evaluate factors such as ease of acceptance, the type of equipment offered, settlement speed. and the range of payment rails available—including emerging ones that may become viable in the near future. “It makes the job a lot harder now, but the days of payments as a necessary evil should be behind us,” Grissom said.