What is a PayFac?

What is a “PayFac?” PayFac is short for Payment Facilitator, and if you want to run a successful retail business in 2025, having a PayFac partner is a good place to start.

Your PayFac partner consolidates all the ways you’re likely to accept money for your products or services into one solution. This is essential due to the number of available payment methods today.

The number of Payment Methods is growing again.

International migration is driving people to North America in droves. The Canadian population grew by over a million people in the last two years, with StatCan reporting that 97.6% of that growth was fuelled by immigration. The situation in the US is similar where immigration rates are the highest they’ve been in 20+ years.

A PayFac that lets you accept payment in global currencies could give your new neighbours a strong reason to choose you if you accept their native currency. And retaining an existing customer is five to seven times less expensive than acquiring a new one.   

But for all of that to happen, you need the right PayFac.

What is a PayFac’s role?

A PayFac takes on the burden of managing all the ways your business collects money, refunds money, and prevents fraud. And this could include many different channels, depending on the kind of business you run.

For example, your business could accept credit cards, debit cards, payments via digital wallets, payments from different currencies, and more — both instore and online. For each of these, you would need a system to intake sales. And you would need tight security procedures for each to safeguard against fraud.

Without a PayFac partner, a retailer would have to set up and manage all these payment structures on their own. Then they’d have to manage all those relationships, taking precious time away from bettering their businesses.

With a PayFac partner, a retailer doesn’t have to do anything except sell. And with the right PayFac, they could sell a lot more.

What else can the right PayFac partner do?

The right PayFac partner will provide data-driven insights to spot trends you can leverage for improving your offering and boosting revenues. This is where the term “partner” comes into play, because what is a PayFac partner if they don’t help you see your blind spots and act accordingly?

What is the right PayFac partner?

The next five years will be about catering to a global market. Being able to facilitate international payments makes you more competitive. The right PayFac already has the solutions you’ll need to be relevant into the future.

How to evaluate PayFacs to choose as your partner

When you decide to bring on a PayFac and expand the ways you accept payments, these are some factors to consider:

Costs

PayFac expenses could include transaction fees, equipment rentals, and gateway charges.

Reliability

For examples, with security, some PayFacs run smoother than others. Hiccups at the wrong time can lead to unsatisfied customers and more chargebacks.

Integration

A good PayFac will integrate well with your accounting or inventory systems.

If you prioritize speed, service and access to 10x the customer base with the ability to facilitate global payments, OTT Pay is your end-to-end omnichannel gateway and you’ll be provided with eCommerce solutions to accept all kinds of payment methods.

Facilitate your way to a bigger business with OTT Pay.