Stripe, Fiserv and Checkout.com move card network membership inside their own Georgia banks

In the usual US arrangement the payments company builds the technology, processes the transaction and manages the merchant, then contracts with a bank that belongs to the card networks and uses that bank's identification number to reach Visa and Mastercard ^[17][18]. Georgia's charter moves that one piece. Membership sits inside the processor's own corporate structure, and the bank relationships doing other work can stay in place ^[19].

Adoption has been slow. The statute was thirteen years old before any transaction cleared under it ^[22], and eleven years passed between the first chartered MALPB and the first one to process ^[23]. Fiserv took about seven months from approval to opening ^[24]; Stripe took about eleven ^[25]. PYMNTS describes the charter as an option for processors with the scale and resources to operate a regulated institution ^[21].

Frank Bisignano, then Fiserv's chief executive, said in April 2025 that the company could use the charter to sponsor its own merchant acquiring where appropriate and "control more of the outcome," while continuing to work with its bank clients ^[8]. Stripe told PYMNTS in the same month that the charter would give it direct US membership with Visa and Mastercard for transactions handled through the MALPB ^[9]. It also said the structure would complement its existing processing and settlement work, and would not replace its bank relationships or acquiring BIN sponsorships ^[10]. Checkout.com's acquiring materials now say the US has "direct acquiring via the MALPB charter" ^[15].

Which function moved is identifiable from the paperwork: Stripe's MALPB Acquirer Terms name the institution as a network member and as the payment method acquirer for applicable Visa and Mastercard transactions ^[12]. PYMNTS does not report what sponsorship costs any of the three firms, what running a charter costs, or how much volume goes through one ^[26]. Without those figures the effect on acquiring costs is unmeasured.

Either the biggest acquirers all take charters and sponsor banks fall back to settlement and deposit work; or the charter carries a slice of each processor's volume while sponsorship keeps carrying the rest; or the cost of running a supervised institution holds the structure to companies of this size, and smaller processors go on contracting for someone else's identification number. I'd expect the middle case, because it is what all three companies say they are doing ^[10][15]. A disclosure of how volume splits between a processor's own charter and its sponsor BINs would decide it.