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GS interviews on merchants surcharging or not. Implications might
be that processing providers might closely consider the
J.D. Power's impact to the end consumer of their pricing approaches,
where flat-rate pricing seems to implicate more apparent
end consumer fees.
John Cabell 3. While debit and credit cards remain dominant, accep-

tance of cryptocurrency has decreased from 20 per-
cent to 15 percent. What factors might be driving this
decline, and do you foresee cryptocurrency acceptance
stabilizing or continuing to drop in the coming years?
Are any particular trends influencing this shift?

According to our data, cryptocurrency shows signifi-
cantly lower general payment type favorability ratings
in 2025 data than in 2024. In addition, there is a signifi-
cant increase in merchants saying the reason they are not
using cryptocurrency is difficulty of use/complicated
payment process. If it's going to be more work for the
merchant, crypto will be at a disadvantage compared to
other forms of payment.
4. Shopify has achieved the highest satisfaction rating
for the second consecutive year, followed closely by
Chase Payment Solutions and PayPal. What are the key
factors that differentiate these top-performing provid-
n the following conversation with John Cabell, ers from others in the study? In particular, what is Chase,
managing director of payments intelligence at J.D. a long-time provider, doing that other long-term provid-
Power, we explore key findings from the firm's 2025 ers are not doing as well?
I U.S. Merchant Services Satisfaction Study. From
the impact of surcharges on card usage to the decline in Although individual brand performance may vary,
cryptocurrency acceptance and the growing adoption of banks tend to perform well in satisfaction with account
digital wallets, Cabell offers valuable insights into the management (that is, self-service), processing cost and
trends, challenges, and opportunities shaping the pay- providing advice/guidance. Specialists (like Square,
ments ecosystem. Shopify, etc.) tend to perform best in satisfaction with
quality of technology and efficiency of payment process-
1. The study highlights that 41 percent of credit card ing.
users have chosen not to use card payment methods
due to surcharges. Is this behavior more pronounced in It's the flip side of what we see with crypto, where the
certain industries or regions? How are merchants strik- race to making things easier for merchants leads to
ing a balance between offsetting costs and retaining greater payment type acceptance and usage of a range
customers who are sensitive to these fees? of payment processing options.

Age and location matter. Consumers who choose not 5. The study indicates a notable decline in satisfaction
to use card payments because of a surcharge tend to be regarding data security and guidance from merchant
older, more affluent and concentrated in more densely services providers. What specific kinds of support or
populated areas like New York, Florida, California, and improvements are small businesses asking for in these
Illinois.Anecdotally, merchants are still figuring out the areas? How can providers improve their services to sat-
best way to handle this situation, as evidenced by the isfy these concerns?
mix of pre-payment surcharge disclosure, nondisclosure
and apologetic explanations at the point of sale. Merchants report the most desired data security support
improvements are better fraud detection tools, better
2. The report mentions that flat-rate pricing structures training and improved fraud alerts. There's a lot of room
correlate with a higher likelihood of merchants adding for improvement here for merchant services providers.
surcharges. Could you elaborate on how different pric- Given the prevalence of fraud and security issues, it's
ing models (for example flat-rate versus interchange- important they get a handle on it.
plus) influence merchant behavior? What might be the
long-term implications for merchant service providers? 6. Cash App Pay, Venmo and Apple Pay have seen sig-
nificant growth in acceptance among small businesses.
Other pricing models do not show significant impact What strategies are these brands employing to increase

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