Five Trends Shaping Onboarding in 2026

Payments Execs reveal their costs, challenges, and tech aspirations to meet merchant expectations.

This report breaks down the real cost of that gap, the 2025-2026 regulatory changes making it worse, and a 90-day plan to close it.

69% of merchants want faster onboarding

Traditional PSP and Banks onboard merchants in 7 days

Just 13% of Execs say then can deliver it

Leading tech-first PSPs onboard in under 60 minutes

Read by ISO owners, PayFac ops leads, and acquirers across North America.

What's inside the report

The true cost of manual onboarding, including the 3 to 5x hidden multiplier most teams never measure
What changed in 2025 to 2026 regulation: BNPL, AML and CDD reform, and AI decisioning
A five-level automation maturity model, with a checklist to find where you stand
A 90-day roadmap to move up a level, with the metrics that prove it

Level up your Onboarding game with Gratify

Everyday we talk to experts in payments, underwriting and merchant onboarding. They share their insights with us, and we want to share them with you.

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