Checkout.com goes live with direct US acquiring on its own Georgia bank charter

Checkout.com announced on 9 September 2026 that it has begun acquiring card transactions in the United States directly under its Merchant Acquirer Limited Purpose Bank charter from the Georgia Department of Banking and Finance. The charter gives it direct access to the card networks without a sponsor bank and more control over the payment lifecycle; the company framed the go-live as the third phase of its MALPB route, after the application was accepted and the charter was approved in January 2026.

Jordan Reynolds, MALPB CEO and head of North American banking, called it a defining step in the company's US journey, and Checkout.com said it will keep hiring and expanding infrastructure in San Francisco, Atlanta and New York. No volumes or financial figures were published.

European platforms selling to enterprise merchants have been converging on owning the regulated layer rather than renting it, and Checkout.com is now the second large European PSP after Adyen to take the sponsor bank out of its US stack. For a European merchant buying one global contract, that changes what Checkout.com can actually control and price on US volume - network routing, settlement timing and chargeback handling stop depending on a third party - which is the argument it has to win against Adyen and the merged Global Payments/Worldpay in enterprise deals fought on both sides of the Atlantic.

Whether existing US volume migrates onto the MALPB or only new merchants are booked on it, whether the charter shows up as a margin effect in the next results, and whether another European PSP files for the same Georgia framework.

• financialit.net
• Finopotamus, dateline Atlanta & New York, 9 September 2026