What is an acquirer and why it has become a key player in the advancement of fintechs

The accelerated growth of the fintech market has placed payment methods at the center of business strategy. According to the consultancy Allied Market Research, the global fintech sector is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 23% by 2028, driven mainly by digital payment solutions, Banking as a Service (BaaS) and marketplaces. For this reason, the figure of the acquirer also called an accreditor has a structural role for companies operating with financial transactions.

The acquirer is the company responsible for connecting the merchant, application or platform to the card system, enabling the authorization, processing and settlement of transactions. It is she who receives the operation started at the physical or digital point of sale, forwards to the card flag and the issuing bank and, after approval, organizes the transfer of the amounts to the receiver.

“Without the acquirer, card payment simply does not happen.It is the backbone of the” transaction, says Segundo Rafael Franco's, CEO of Alphacode, company specialized in the development of digital financial platforms

In practice, when a user makes a purchase in an application or e-commerce, the transaction runs through a chain that involves a sales system, acquirer, flag and issuing bank. After authorization, the accreditor is responsible for organizing settlement deadlines, fees, installments and the so-called receivables schedule, a step that directly impacts the cash flow of the business.

This role has gained even more relevance as fintechs have taken on traditional banking functions.Data from the Brazilian Association of Fintechs (ABFintechs) indicate that more than 60% of Brazilian fintechs already offer complete alternatives to the traditional financial system, including digital accounts, credit and integrated payment solutions.

Acquisition is no longer just an operational service.“It directly interferes with the ability to scale, transaction conversion rate, financial margin and risk control”, explains Franco. Authorization failures or processing instability, for example, result in near-immediate purchase abandonment, especially in mobile applications.

Another sensitive point is the financial impact.MDR fees, transfer deadlines and conditions for anticipation of receivables can significantly change the result of fintechs operating with high transactional volume.Mckinsey study shows that consumers using digital means of payment spend, on average, 30% more than those using physical money which increases the relevance of an efficient acquisition operation.

In addition, risk management has become central.Chargebacks, fraud and disputes are part of the daily life of digital financial operations.“The way acquiring is structured influences cash predictability and even the financial health of the company”, he says.

Confusion between acquirer, gateway and subacquirer is still common in the market. The acquirer is the one who processes and settles the transaction. The gateway acts as the technological layer that connects the checkout to different providers and can offer routing and redundancy. The subacquirer acts as an intermediary, widely used in marketplaces and platforms with multiple receivers, facilitating the entry of merchants into the ecosystem.

The choice between these models involves trade-offs. “Each decision has clear implications in cost, control, regulatory risk and capacity to scale”, says Franco.

When evaluating an acquirer, experts recommend observing operation stability, quality of APIs, support capacity, settlement deadlines and chargeback policies.It is also critical to understand whether the structure supports more complex models such as payment split, recurrence and multiple receivers, increasingly common in the fintech universe.

“A acquirer is critical infrastructure. In many cases, it defines whether the product will grow predictably or accumulate operational problems along the way.In an increasingly digital financial ecosystem, the strength of this choice has become one of the factors that separate scalable operations from projects that are nothing but pilot.”, concludes Franco.