Affirm and Nuvei Are Buying Their Way Deeper Into Merchants’ Payment Operations

Two cross-border deals announced this week show the same idea from two angles: payment companies are not just trying to sit on the checkout page, they want the plumbing around it too. For merchants, that means lenders and processors moving from a single payment feature to broader control over acceptance, payout, and post-sale flows.

1. Under the agreement Nexi announced Monday (Nov. 9), Affirm would acquire Ratepay, a German payments company that serves merchants in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Ratepay specializes in allowing shoppers to place an order and pay the invoice later, so the deal gives Affirm a direct route into merchant payment relationships that are already in place.
2. The transaction is not just about ownership. Affirm has also signed a memorandum of understanding with Nexi to expand their existing partnership in the same three markets. Nexi plans to provide local and technical support after closing, and regulatory approvals are expected in the first half of 2027.
3. The mechanics matter here: getting a financial product into a merchant’s systems is what makes these relationships sticky. In a survey cited by the October PYMNTS Intelligence and WEX business payments tracker, Built to Scale: How to Grow Embedded Payments Without Starting Over, 99% of companies had introduced some form of embedded finance, and 93% reported difficulties offering it. The stated pain points were technical integration, compliance and security, which is exactly why buying a provider with existing merchant connections is more efficient than starting from scratch.
4. Nuvei’s proposed $2.75 billion purchase of Payoneer is the other half of the story. Nuvei handles payment acceptance; Payoneer provides accounts that hold balances in multiple currencies, a banking network and cross-border payouts. In practice, that means a business can keep funds in the currency it received or send money to a supplier in another market after the sale is already done.
5. Payoneer’s Thursday (Nov. 5) earnings show the scale of the business Nuvei agreed to buy in June: small and midsize marketplace sellers accounted for roughly half of quarterly payment volume, at $12.6 billion, up 1% from a year earlier. Enterprise payouts rose 14% to $7.4 billion, and business-to-business volume increased 59% to $5 billion, with Payoneer citing growth across major regions and gains with larger customers, particularly in China, Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The company also reported obtaining payment licenses in Canada and Israel. The acquisition still requires regulatory approvals after Payoneer shareholders voted in favor in September, and the target close is mid-2027.

For high-risk merchants and the PSPs that serve them, the point is straightforward: the value is moving from a single acquiring or acceptance layer to the broader stack around it. Whoever controls onboarding, balances, payouts and local support gets a stronger claim on the merchant relationship — and a better shot at keeping it.