Best Fintech & Payments M&A Advisors in 2026 (the Consent-Stack Guide)

Best Fintech & Payments M&A Advisors in 2026 (the Consent-Stack Guide)

Last updated: September 2026 · Last verified: September 2026

TL;DR. "Fintech and payments M&A" is three markets with three prices and one shared gate, the Consent Stack: state money transmitter change-of-control approval, FinCEN re-registration within 180 days of a more-than-10% transfer (31 CFR 1022.380(b)(4)), the sponsor bank's consent plus card-network third-party-agent re-registration (Visa Core Rules, April 18, 2026 edition), and the four-pillar AML program (31 CFR 1022.210). Counts are flat and values are up: 36 payments deals through June 24, 2026, level with 2025, about $20 billion disclosed on 11 of them, after $48.4 billion in 2025 (Payments Dive, July 20, 2026). Ranked on dated adviser-of-record evidence: Tier 1 FT Partners, William Blair and Houlihan Lokey; Tier 2 D.A. Davidson, Wellesley Hills Financial, 733Park, GP Bullhound, Arma Partners and The Strawhecker Group; Tier 3 KeyBanc Capital Markets and Piper Sandler. I run Peony, the data room 6,800+ teams use for processes like these; we are not an adviser.

Why is "fintech and payments" three M&A markets rather than one?

Because a merchant portfolio, a licensed money transmitter and a payments software platform are priced on three denominators, bought by three buyer sets and approved by three regulators. I'm Sean Yu, co-founder of Peony, a data room company. I have built and watched thousands of data rooms across my career — about 1,000 of those when I was an investor at two funds with a combined $6.3 billion in AUM, and the rest across the 6,800+ teams Peony serves today, where the founders we work with have raised over $18 billion to date. This guide is for three sellers who type the same query: the owner of a merchant-acquiring ISO, payment facilitator or residual portfolio, priced on annual net revenue and gated by a sponsor bank; the founder of a licensed money transmitter, wallet, remittance or crypto business, gated by every state that licenses it and by FinCEN; and the founder of a fintech software or infrastructure company, priced on ARR or EBITDA and gated only where it holds licences of its own.

A fintech and payments M&A adviser is an investment bank, M&A broker or payments business broker that runs the sale, recapitalization or raise of one of those businesses: positioning net revenue, attrition and take rate, building the buyer list of card networks, bank charters, public strategics and sponsor platforms, and managing the consent calendar that usually sets the closing date. This post sits under the best M&A advisors hub, deepens the one-section fintech treatment in our best technology and software M&A advisors guide, which names FT Partners and 733Park and stops, and takes the fintech hand-off from our best financial services M&A advisors guide.

I built the bench on one standard, the Adviser-of-Record Ledger: a firm earns a rank only if I could find a fintech or payments adviser-of-record credit with a date in a primary source, an SEC filing, a counterparty's release or the firm's own tombstone with the role and date stated; where the evidence is undated or the firm unregistered, the profile says so. The one published count ranking I could open is PitchBook's, as Houlihan Lokey prints it: 2025 M&A advisory rankings, all global fintech transactions: Houlihan Lokey 22, Goldman Sachs 21, William Blair 15, Perella Weinberg Partners 13, FT Partners 12. Only those five are printed; I infer no rank for anyone else.

TSG's October 2025 read is that most activity is mid-market and niche deals delivering specific capabilities, regulatory advantages, market share or geography, under a headline layer of Capital One's $35 billion acquisition of Discover and Global Payments' $22.7 billion purchase of Worldpay; Sam Wares, the TSG director who tracks deal-making, told Payments Dive that first-half 2026 value ran higher than the prior year as bigger public companies increased buying, and that the pace is not slowing. The honest headline is flat counts, rising values, and a buyer set led by the card networks and bank charters, the buyers for whom the Consent Stack is routine.

What is the Consent Stack, and why does it decide who can buy your company?

Four approvals, each on its own clock, and the buyer who already holds three of them can close months before the buyer who holds none. No competitor listicle carries it, and I opened every leg on the primary source.

Leg 1: state money transmitter change of control. If your company holds state money transmitter licences, every licensing state must approve the buyer before it acquires control. The CSBS Money Transmission Modernization Act is the template a growing bloc of states has enacted, including Texas (effective September 1, 2023), Louisiana (effective July 1, 2026) and Alaska (enacted June 30, 2026, most provisions effective July 1, 2027); I could not open a verified count of adopting states and will not print one. Texas is the worked example because the enrolled text of SB 895, adding Finance Code Chapter 152, is public:

Read the last row as a bidder-selection rule: a strategic that already holds money transmitter licences in your states can take the 30-day notice route; a sponsor that has never held one files a full application in each state and waits out the 60-day clock, extendable. The Texas numbers are Texas; other states' section numbers and details vary. Louisiana's HB 1230 replaced its Sale of Checks and Money Transmission Act, and Alaska's SB 86 authorizes the nationwide multistate licensing system for changes of control.

Leg 2: FinCEN re-registration. 31 CFR 1022.380(b)(4) names three events that require a money services business to re-register: a change in ownership or control that requires re-registration under state law; "a transfer of more than 10 percent of the voting power or equity interests of a money services business (other than a money services business that must report such transfer to the Securities and Exchange Commission)"; and a more than 50 percent increase in the number of agents during a registration period. "The registration form must be filed not later than 180 days after such change," and the year of the change starts a new two-year registration period. Under paragraph (c), "any person who owns or controls a money services business is responsible for registering the business," so the obligation is the buyer's. The public-company carve-out means the more-than-10% transfer trigger does not bite Intermex; whether the sale still forces a FinCEN re-registration turns on whether any licensing state requires re-registration on the change of control.

Which fintechs this leg bites is decided by the payment-processor carve-out in 31 CFR 1010.100(ff)(5): the term money transmitter "shall not include a person that only" acts "as a payment processor to facilitate the purchase of, or payment of a bill for, a good or service through a clearance and settlement system by agreement with the creditor or seller," or "accepts and transmits funds only integral to the sale of goods or the provision of services." It is a facts-and-circumstances test in the regulation's own words, not a bright line. The practical map: a merchant acquirer, ISO or payfac settling card transactions through a sponsor bank usually relies on the carve-out and is not an MSB; a wallet, remittance, P2P, stored-value or crypto business usually is.

Leg 3: the sponsor bank and the card network. An ISO or payment facilitator does not hold the Visa or Mastercard relationship; its sponsor bank, a Member and Acquirer, does, and the registration belongs to the bank. The Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, edition dated April 18, 2026, state the mechanics:

• §1.9.8.6, Third Party Agent Registration Requirements: "A Member must register a Third Party Agent with Visa"; "Registration must be completed before the performance of any contracted services or Transaction activity. Visa may deny or reject a Third Party Agent's registration at any time with or without cause."
• §1.9.8.7, Merchant Third Party Agent Registration Requirements: "Registration of a Third Party Agent is specific to each Acquirer, and requires a separate registration by each Acquirer" whose Acquiring Identifier the agent uses or whose merchants it serves.
• §1.5.1.10, Payment Facilitator Identifier Assignment: an Acquirer that contracts with a Payment Facilitator must ensure its registration and obtain from Visa "a unique Payment Facilitator identifier."
• §10.2.2.1, Member Risk Management and Approval for Third Party Agents: "Before contracting with a Third Party Agent, a senior officer of a Member must review all documentation" and "conduct a background investigation to verify the responsibility (including, where appropriate, financial responsibility) of the principals." Registration "does not represent confirmation by Visa of the Third Party Agent's compliance with any specific requirement."
• Effective October 24, 2026, US and Canada regions: Members must disclose to Visa the numeric identifiers, "all BINS, and any applicable Account Ranges used by its Third Party Agent," and must review and update that information "on an annual basis, following any changes, or upon Visa's request."

Put together, as framing rather than a rule number: the sale of an ISO or payfac needs the sponsor bank's consent under the sponsorship agreement, then either an update of the agent record and re-vetting of the new principals if the buyer keeps your sponsor, or a fresh registration by the buyer's own acquirer if it moves the book. Visa's explicit change-of-ownership notice line, §10.2.1.5, sits in the VisaNet Processor section and applies to processors, not to every agent. Mastercard runs a parallel service-provider registration through the sponsoring acquirer; I did not open its rules and cite no Mastercard rule number. One more line belongs on the diligence list: an Acquirer must add a terminated merchant, sponsored merchant or Third Party Agent, "including, but not limited to, a Payment Facilitator, Marketplace, Digital Wallet Operator [DWO], or Independent Sales Organization," to the Visa Merchant Screening Service if the listing criteria are met.

Leg 4: the AML program. 31 CFR 1022.210 requires each money services business to "develop, implement, and maintain an effective anti-money laundering program," "commensurate with the risks posed by the location and size of, and the nature and volume of the financial services provided by, the money services business," in writing and available to Treasury on request. At a minimum it must (1) incorporate policies, procedures and internal controls, including verifying customer identification, filing reports, creating and retaining records and responding to law enforcement requests; (2) designate a person to assure day-to-day compliance; (3) provide education or training; and (4) provide for independent review, which an employee may conduct "so long as the reviewer is not the person designated in paragraph (d)(2)." The four pillars are the buyer's diligence index for any MSB, and sponsor banks push an equivalent program down to ISOs and payfacs by contract. FinCEN proposed changes to AML program rules in 2026; that is a proposal, not a final rule.

How long does it take to sell a payments company, and what sets the calendar?

No bank or trade body publishes a payments-specific timeline, so the honest benchmark is the generic process in our sell-side due diligence guide plus the legs above laid end to end. Financial diligence rarely sets the calendar; the consents do. For a licensed transmitter, sort the bidders by which can take a streamlined notice route and which must file a full application, and assume the slowest state's 60-day clock, extendable, runs from the day its application is complete. For an ISO, the sponsor bank's consent is the first call your adviser makes and the buyer's acquirer registering you is the last. For an MSB, the 180-day FinCEN clock starts at the transfer and is the buyer's to run. The live example is Intermex: signed August 10, 2025, and still pending in its 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026, awaiting the remaining regulatory approval, with an outside date of November 10, 2026 that auto-extends for regulatory approvals, thirteen months and counting for a licensed transmitter. TSG's October 2025 advice to acquirers is the mirror image: "Acquiring licensed entities can accelerate compliance, but due diligence on regulatory standing is critical."

Which advisers actually closed the fintech and payments deals on the tape, 2025-26?

Eighteen transactions where I could read the adviser's role in the adviser's own release or transaction page, an EDGAR exhibit, or a dated headline plus the firm's own list. The Adviser-of-Record Ledger, chronological:

Bottom line: the payments lane of the ledger is ten rows, Fortis, Arroweye, AvidXchange, Intermex, Dealer Merchant Services, ACS/Vanco, Equiniti, Cantaloupe, ReliantPay and Qolo, and seven of them belong to the three Tier 1 banks. I print no dollar value for Cantaloupe, Dealer Merchant Services, Qolo, ReliantPay, ACS/Vanco, Fortis, Origo or Zuto because none appears on the adviser's page, and I carry Intermex as announced because its 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2026 says the merger is still awaiting the remaining regulatory approval, with an outside date of November 10, 2026 that auto-extends for regulatory approvals; AvidXchange closed in October 2025 per its Form 25 and Form 15 filings. FT Partners' financing credits, Bilt's $250 million raise at a $10.75 billion valuation (July 2025) and Model ML's $75 million Series A (November 2025), are real and dated but are not M&A, so they sit outside the table.

Most 2026 payments headlines name no adviser at all. Mastercard's agreed purchase of BVNK for up to $1.8 billion, American Express's $700 million TheFork deal, Capital One's agreed $5.15 billion purchase of Brex (January 2026), NMI's purchase of Dwolla (May 2026), Citi's purchase of Kard (August 2026) and Stride Bank's agreed $590 million sale to Chime (September 2026) carry no adviser of record I could verify, and Stripe's reported $53 billion bid for PayPal is a report, not a fact; a list that credits a bank with any of them without a filing or a party's release is asserting, not reporting.

Who are the 11 fintech and payments M&A advisors on this bench, and how are they ranked?

By dated fintech adviser-of-record evidence first, by relevance to the three sellers above second. A counterparty's SEC filing outranks a firm's own dated tombstone, which outranks a dated headline plus the firm's own list, which outranks undated tombstones, which outrank valuation volume without a dated deal; and repeat dated evidence in the payments lane outranks a single dated credit outside it. That is why FT Partners sits above Houlihan Lokey despite PitchBook's count, why the two ISO boutiques sit above two European banks with bigger deals, and why The Strawhecker Group, with more payments valuations than anyone here and no dated tombstone, closes Tier 2.

1. FT Partners: the only fintech-exclusive bank, and the deepest dated payments series

Financial Technology Partners, San Francisco with New York, Miami and London offices, calls itself "The Only Investment Bank Focused Exclusively on FinTech"; a podcast blurb on its news page says "Since 2001," our tech hub carries a 2002 launch, and founder Steve McLaughlin ran fintech at Goldman Sachs before it. US banking runs through FTP Securities LLC, a FINRA and SIPC member, CRD 129356. The dated 2025-26 record: advisor to Siris Capital on the $4.2 billion sale of Equiniti to Bullish (announced May 5, 2026; Equiniti processes about $500 billion in annual payments); to Deribit on its roughly $4.3 billion sale to Coinbase (closed August 14, 2025, "the largest strategic M&A deal ever in the Digital Assets space" in the firm's words); to Intermex on its $16.00-per-share sale to Western Union (announced August 10, 2025); to AvidXchange on its $2.2 billion take-private by TPG and Corpay (announced May 6, 2025; closed October 2025); and to Hidden Road on its $1.25 billion sale to Ripple (closed October 2025 per our tech hub). Research is the second product: the Global FinTech Report 2026 with BCG and "The Coming FinTech Liquidity Supercycle" with Blue Dot Investors. Stated as reported: Bloomberg reported in December 2024 that EQT had tapped FT Partners to sell Banking Circle, and the firm was in a public fee dispute with Circle in 2024-25. Verdict: first on dated evidence and the only firm here with a licensed-transmitter credit on the tape; PitchBook's fifth place by count says the others do more deals, not more payments deals.

2. William Blair: three closed payments deals with the date on the page

William Blair, Chicago, employee-owned, CRD 1252, is the sponsor-backed payments bank on this bench and the only one whose payments tombstones state the closing date: Fortis Payment Systems, "the leader in embedded payments for software providers," recapitalized by Lovell Minnick Partners and Audax Group, "the transaction closed on March 11, 2025"; ACS Technologies sold to Vanco, a Great Hill Partners portfolio company in digital payments and giving, exclusive financial advisor, closed December 1, 2025; and the buy-side for Providence Equity's 365 Retail Markets on Cantaloupe, Inc. (NASDAQ: CTLP), closed May 8, 2026. Its older headlines, Transact Campus to Roper's CBORD at $1.6 billion (August 2024) and Nordic Capital's One Inc (May 2024), are the same lane. PitchBook ranked it third globally in 2025 fintech M&A with 15 deals; it added a senior fintech banker in London in May 2026. Verdict: the call for an embedded-payments or vertical-payments platform whose likely buyer is a sponsor or a sponsor-backed strategic; second only because FT Partners' series is deeper and includes the transmitter lane.

3. Houlihan Lokey: first by count, with one payments credit fixed by an 8-K

Houlihan Lokey, Los Angeles, NYSE: HLI, CRD 17708, prints the ranking everyone else here is measured against: PitchBook's 2025 global fintech table, Houlihan Lokey at 22 deals. Its fintech page covers payments, banking and lending tech, capital-markets tech, insurtech and the corporate financial function, and its selected transactions skew to the last four (TA Associates on smartTrade, Broadstone from Lovell Minnick, Keylane to Pollen Street, undated). The dated payments credit is Arroweye Solutions to CPI Card Group, sell-side, "completed upon signing on May 6," funded partly from CPI's $75 million ABL revolver; the year, 2025, comes from CPI Card Group's 8-K filed May 7, 2025, not from the firm's page. The second dated credit is the Trading Technologies $835 million continuation vehicle with 7RIDGE and a $450 million senior secured facility, closed November 4, 2025. Verdict: the count leader and the broadest fintech desk; third because one card-issuance credit is thinner payments evidence than the two above it; first call for capital-markets or wealth technology, or when the process may need the restructuring bench.

4. D.A. Davidson: the Marlin & Associates bench, with a 2026 payments-infrastructure credit

D.A. Davidson & Co., Great Falls, Montana, CRD 199, runs its technology investment bank on the team it bought with Marlin & Associates in 2021, which is why Marlin no longer appears as an independent firm on any honest list. The dated credit is Qolo, "a leading provider of modern treasury solutions and payments infrastructure," sold to Computer Services, Inc., exclusive strategic and financial advisor, announced July 14-15, 2026, with CSI's own release saying "acquires." Behind it, on headline evidence: W3C Corp's sale to Exodus (December 1, 2025), Delta Data to BetaNXT (June 2025) and TPG Software to Abrigo (April 2024). Verdict: the registered mid-market option for treasury, banking and payments infrastructure below the Tier 1 banks' size floor.

5. Wellesley Hills Financial: the merchant-acquiring boutique with a FINRA-member affiliate

Wellesley Hills Financial, Newton, Massachusetts, has "since 2007" served "fintech, payments and B2B software companies in the lower, middle-market," Managing Member Adam T. Hark, and its footer states that securities transactions are introduced through Wellesley Hills Securities, member SIPC and FINRA, CRD 315364, active, the one thing that separates it from the other two acquiring specialists. The dated credit is exclusive sell-side advisor to Dealer Merchant Services, a Dallas card-processing company for auto dealerships, on its sale to Priority Technology Holdings, an asset acquisition in joint venture with DMS, press item dated October 3, 2025. Two further tombstones, Electronic Payments' acquisition of Handpoint (August 2025) and Celero Commerce's acquisition of Petroleum Processing Solutions (March 2026), do not state which side the firm advised, so I credit neither. The firm launched Merchant Portfolios, a marketplace for residual-portfolio sales, in April 2025 and opened London and New York hubs in March 2026; its transactions wall is undated images. Verdict: the first call for an ISO or portfolio seller who wants a registered chain behind the boutique.

6. 733Park: the ISO specialist under the M&A-broker exemption

733Park, Boston, is Lane Gordon: "When you work with 733Park, you get Lane Gordon," under a headline of "$10 billion in transactions. 200+ deals closed. 25+ years of payments M&A expertise," the firm's own claims. Its FAQ answers the registration question before you ask it: "Is 733Park FINRA-licensed? No, by design. We work under the federal M&A Broker exemption (Section 15(b)(13) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934)," and "We don't do capital raises or securities offerings that require FINRA licensing." The dated credit is advisor to Alipse Payments on its acquisition of ReliantPay, Inc., a Missouri ISO and merchant processing portfolio, announced July 6, 2026, a buy-side; CDE Services to Milestone Partners (November 2023) is the prior dated payments credit, and its undated past-transactions list overlaps Wellesley Hills' wall on several names, so I attribute none of those exclusively. Verdict: the residual-portfolio and ISO call at the size the statute defines, for an asset sale; add a FINRA member when the deal is a stock sale or a raise.

7. GP Bullhound: the European fintech and wealthtech lane

GP Bullhound, London, partner-owned, US arm GP Bullhound Inc., CRD 147794, San Francisco, has two dated credits: exclusive financial adviser to Origo and its shareholders on the sale to iPipeline, a Roper Technologies business unit, announced September 1, 2026, Origo being the UK's connectivity layer for transfers, digital identity and adviser connectivity, sold by Vespa Capital after EBITDA grew more than sevenfold; and exclusive financial adviser to Zuto, the UK's online car-finance marketplace, on Bridgepoint's majority investment, November 19, 2025. Prodigy Finance's $240 million in December 2025 is a headline whose adviser role I did not open. Verdict: the cross-border call for a UK or European fintech, wealthtech or consumer-credit seller; no US payments credit.

8. Arma Partners: core banking software, Mediobanca-owned

Arma Partners, London, Mediobanca-owned since the deal announced May 18, 2023, US arm US Arma Partners LP, New York, CRD 136024, files deals under "Digital Banking & Payments" and "Fintech, WealthTech & InsurTech." The dated credit is exclusive financial advisor to Finastra, a Vista Equity Partners portfolio company, on the sale of its Universal Banking division to Pollen Street Capital, page dated June 2026, size band $500 million to $1 billion per Arma, the Essence core-banking platform with 150-plus customers in 100-plus countries; not to be confused with Finastra's earlier sale of a different division. Verdict: the European bank-software call; core banking rather than payments, and never to be described as independent.

9. The Strawhecker Group: the valuation authority, on the other side of the registration line

The Strawhecker Group, Omaha, is "the go-to M&A advisor to the Payments industry" in its own words, with "over 250 valuations of payments companies," support "from $1M – $10B+ in transaction assessed value," "over 30 acquisition and investment transactions," and "40+ of the top 50 merchant acquirers served, including 9 of the top 10." Its page footer is the sentence every sub-$25 million seller should read: "TSG is a business broker and is not in the business of effecting transactions in securities for the account of others. We are not registered as a broker-dealer under federal or state securities laws," with securities transactions supported "through our partnership with global investment banking firm Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide (CFAW)," whose registration I did not establish. Its tombstone carousel (Payroc and Integrity, Priority and Cynergy Data, Terrapin to BluePay, Shift4 and Lighthouse Network) carries no dates, so TSG is named on valuation-volume evidence, not on a dated 2024-26 adviser-of-record tombstone; a paid assessment comes first, per its April 29, 2026 piece. Verdict: the firm to price a portfolio and run an asset sale of one; the wrong counterparty, by its own statement, for a stock sale.

10. KeyBanc Capital Markets: a 2026 lending-software sell-side, no payments tombstone

KeyBanc Capital Markets, Cleveland, CRD 566, KeyCorp-owned, runs fintech inside the KBCM Technology Group under Pat Kratus and publishes a "Financial Technology Monthly." The dated credit on its deal carousel is exclusive sell-side advisor to LTi Technology Solutions, equipment-finance software, on its sale to Diversis Capital on March 20, 2026, per KeyBanc's own deal summary, which names it exclusive sell-side advisor. Payments at Key is a corporate-banking product, not an M&A tombstone I could find. Verdict: a bank-owned generalist technology group with one dated fintech credit; the call for lending and equipment-finance software.

11. Piper Sandler: capital-markets technology and digital assets, not merchant acquiring

Piper Sandler, Minneapolis and New York, NYSE: PIPR, CRD 665, houses fintech inside the financial-services group that absorbed Sandler O'Neill in 2020 and describes its coverage as "capital markets technology, market infrastructure, wealth management technology and payments." Its fintech-filtered transaction list is dated and real, and it is not payments: Clear Street financings (September 2025 and May 2026), Miami International Holdings (2025), financial advisor to Bite Investments on NewSpring Capital's growth investment (September 30, 2025), Galaxy Digital and Marex (2025). Zero payments M&A tombstones in the 2024-26 window; Chime's agreed purchase of Stride Bank carries no adviser I could verify. Verdict: the call for a capital-markets-technology, exchange or digital-assets seller, and the FIG desk you will meet across the table when a bank buys a fintech. Nobody on Tier 1 publishes a minimum deal size; FT Partners' dated credits run from Intermex's roughly $500 million to Deribit's roughly $4.3 billion, so below that the evidence sits with D.A. Davidson, Wellesley Hills Financial and 733Park.

How do I check whether a payments M&A adviser is registered, and why are the ISO specialists not on BrokerCheck?

Search the entity in the firm's footer, not the brand on the door, and expect the acquiring lane to return two different answers. I ran the bench through the SEC's adviser-info firm search, which returns broker-dealer records as well as investment advisers, on September 16, 2026:

The pattern is the market's shape, not a scandal. Most residual-portfolio sales are asset sales, and the federal M&A-broker exemption in Exchange Act §15(b)(13) exempts an M&A broker from registration on the sale of a privately held company whose EBITDA is "less than $25,000,000" or whose gross revenues are "less than $250,000,000" in the prior fiscal year, so long as the broker does not receive, hold or transmit the funds or securities, provide financing related to the transfer, bind a party to the transfer, or represent both sides without clear written disclosure and both parties' written consent. 733Park works inside that exemption; TSG describes itself as a business broker and routes securities work to a partner; Wellesley Hills Financial keeps a FINRA member in the family. It stops being academic when your deal is a stock sale, includes a capital raise, or rolls your equity into a sponsor's holding company, because financing and securities offerings are outside the exemption; ask, in writing, which registered entity will receive the fee and act on that leg. The upstream decision is in our M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank guide.

Who did we leave off, and why?

Every firm below is real. What is missing is a dated fintech or payments adviser-of-record credit I could open, or the registration is inactive, or the firm is in the wrong category. Goldman Sachs and Perella Weinberg Partners sit second and fourth on PitchBook's 2025 fintech count at 21 and 13 deals, and neither showed me a dated fintech tombstone in this pass, so they are on the count table and not on the ledger. KBW, the Stifel-owned bank specialist "since 1962," is the FIG desk that appears on the buyer side when a bank acquires a fintech; NMI's purchase of Dwolla, Citi's purchase of Kard and other 2026 headlines do not confirm a KBW role, and I attribute none. Raymond James names financial technology as one of its five technology sectors with more than 50 senior bankers, and its transaction page carries 2026 wealthtech tombstones whose counterparties and role the page text did not state; ION Analytics reported in January 2026 that MyComplianceOffice was exploring a sale through Raymond James, a report, not a credit. Stephens runs a dedicated Financial Technology & Payments group; I found no dated 2024-26 payments tombstone to rank it on. Alantra, Madrid, with a Boston-registered US arm (CRD 22095), publishes a fintech update whose current edition is the 2024 year-end review, and its dated 2025-26 releases are software outside fintech. Portico Capital Advisors was sold to Cowen in 2021 and its broker-dealer registration (CRD 125865) is inactive, as is Cowen and Company's after the TD takeover; Evolve Capital Partners' Evolve Securities (CRD 127474) is inactive too. Marlin & Associates is D.A. Davidson. Q Advisors is a communications-software specialist. Two head-to-heads readers ask about: TSG versus an investment bank, where the answer is the structure, TSG for a valuation and an asset sale and a registered bank for a stock sale; and GP Bullhound versus FT Partners for a UK fintech, where GP Bullhound has the two dated UK credits and FT Partners the London office and the larger deals, so ask both for their last three UK closes.

What are payments companies and fintech platforms selling for in 2026?

On two denominators, and the denominator moves the number more than the multiple does. Call it the Two-Price Rule: a merchant portfolio or residual-based ISO is priced on a multiple of annual net revenue; a fintech platform with recurring software revenue is priced on ARR or EBITDA by the bank bench; and a licensed transmitter sits between them, priced on transaction economics and the licences it holds.

The only dated published range for the first price is The Strawhecker Group's October 23, 2024 infographic, "What is my multiple?": across its dataset of payments-company and portfolio transactions, plotted as annual net-revenue multiple against annual sales volume, "These multiples range from 1x to 7x," with an average of 3.9x, and the point of the chart is the scatter: "If a net revenue multiple was truly meaningful, the plots would be clustered in one area of the chart," which "shows that multiples are a result of a transaction not the driver of the value itself." TSG's value drivers, in its order: sales channel (W-2, 1099, integrated, bank, referral, digital); geography; size of merchants, "typically the biggest driver of a merchant portfolio's financial performance," because age, price, profitability and attrition all correlate with annual card volume; merchant type; technology, products and security; and synergies to the buyer. Its footnote is the underwriting rule: "The strength and sustainability of a business's sales engine is a key driver impacting the multiple." I print no ARR or EBITDA range for fintech platforms because no bench firm published a verified 2026 one; the SaaS ladder in our best software M&A advisors guide is the nearest reference, and it is a software number. Residual buyers quote in months of net residual; TSG's data expresses the same economics as an annual net-revenue multiple, no dated published range exists for the monthly form, and the buyer's model is a migration model, which is why it wants your merchant-level file before it names a price. What moves a company from the first price to the second is owned software, integrated distribution and a revenue line a buyer can call recurring, the reason the ledger's platform credits (Fortis, Cantaloupe, Qolo) were bank-run and its portfolio credits (Dealer Merchant Services, ReliantPay) were boutique-run.

Who is buying fintech and payments companies in 2026: networks, bank charters, strategics or sponsors?

Card networks and bank charters at the top, larger public strategics in the middle, and sponsors re-entering underneath. Payments Dive's July 2026 buyer map has Mastercard, American Express and Capital One doing the largest 2026 buying; Sam Wares' line is "The networks are driving a lot of the activity." TSG's October 2025 "Private Equity Re-Entry" section names Thoma Bravo's roughly $2 billion outlay for Olo, an ISV serving more than 88,000 restaurant locations, and Parthenon-backed Payroc's three acquisitions in less than two months, alongside Stripe's purchases of Orum and Privy after its $1.1 billion Bridge deal in October 2024. BCG and FT Partners' 2026 report adds the structural line: fintech companies out-acquired banks in M&A for the first time on record. The ledger says the same from the adviser's side: of its ten payments rows, four buyers were sponsors or sponsor-backed platforms (Lovell Minnick and Audax, Great Hill's Vanco, Providence's 365, TPG and Corpay), four were public strategics (CPI Card Group, Western Union, Priority, Bullish) and two were private processors (CSI, Alipse).

Each buyer type carries a different Consent Stack. A bank-charter buyer brings its own BSA program and a Bank Merger Act review, a different regime from an MSB-to-MSB sale; a strategic that already holds money transmitter licences in your states can take the streamlined notice route; a sponsor that has never held one files everywhere and waits; and a processor buying an ISO decides, in the LOI, whether it keeps your sponsor bank or migrates the book. For a $10 million-net-revenue acquiring seller, the buyer list should be sorted by consent posture before price, and the private equity and investment banking rooms we see run that way keep a consent-status column beside the bid column.

What do buyers diligence in a fintech or payments sale, and what goes in the AML file?

The four pillars first, then a file that changes by lane. The items with a primary source behind them: the written AML program and its last two independent reviews, the four elements 31 CFR 1022.210(d) requires, with the reviewer shown to be someone other than the designated compliance person; FinCEN registration history and the re-registration trail for any MSB, against the events in §1022.380(b)(4); state licence files, examination reports and any consent orders, because a Texas change-of-control application reviews "financial condition and responsibility, financial and business experience, character, and general fitness"; sponsor-bank audit findings and the Third Party Agent registration record, including the identifiers, BINs and account ranges the October 24, 2026 Visa disclosure duty covers; and VMSS or terminated-merchant history for you and your agents. Practitioner items with no published source, ours rather than a statistic: merchant-level residual reports with attrition by cohort and channel, ISV and referral-partner contracts and their assignment clauses, agent and sub-ISO agreements, chargeback and fraud ratios by merchant category, reserve and settlement schedules, SAR and CTR filing statistics rather than the reports themselves, OFAC screening logs, and, for a wallet or crypto business, custody and safeguarding arrangements. Two things killed deals I have watched from the room: a FinCEN or state registration gap found by the buyer rather than disclosed by the seller, and a sponsorship agreement whose change-of-control clause nobody read before the LOI. The quality of earnings and sell-side due diligence guides sit on top; for a stablecoin or tokenised-asset business, the RWA and stablecoins room is the variant.

What should the data room look like when the bidders are the processors you compete with and the sponsor bank is watching?

Built so that no processor sees your merchant-level economics until its bid is real, and so the sponsor bank's consent package lives in a separate workspace, because in this sector the likeliest buyer is a competitor who can migrate your book, and the bank that must consent sees the process through its own right. The fix is staged access, run out of a room you control:

• A separate data room per bidder, with visitor groups walling the processors off from the sponsor-backed platform and the bank inside one process, so no party sees another's tranche, activity or Q&A, and a separate workspace for the sponsor bank's consent package and the state change-of-control filings.
• Staged disclosure: the portfolio summary, attrition curve and channel mix first; the AML program, independent reviews, sponsor-bank audit findings and state examination letters in the middle; merchant-level residual reports, ISV and referral contracts, agent agreements and the merchant file last, after a bid you believe.
• NDA gates before the room opens: Simple NDA on Business and up, a signed NDA with a countersigned PDF on Data Room and up; one-click revoke, view-only with no download and screenshot protection on Business and up; password-protected links, link expiry and analytics on every tier including Free.
• Per-viewer dynamic watermarks on every rendered page, so a forwarded residual report traces to one reader; with a custom domain, on Data Room and up.
• Page-level analytics showing which processor spent an hour on the attrition schedule, the one building a migration model or preparing a retrade.
• Redaction and archive download on Deal Team, for merchant files that still carry identifiers, plus auto-indexing so the consent package you hand a regulator is complete on the first submission, because the Texas clock runs from the completion date; structured Q&A and the security layer.

Peony is not an M&A adviser and does not place deals; the firms above do that. We are the confidential room the process runs in: pick your adviser first, then stand up the room. Peony serves 6,800+ customers on exactly this layer, rated 4.8 on G2 and 4.9 on Capterra. The Data Room plan is $52 per admin per month billed annually, the tier a sell-side process wants: dynamic watermarking, signed NDA, custom domain, per-file permissions and unlimited rooms. Business is $30 per admin per month; Deal Team is $64 per admin per month billed annually with a four-admin minimum, adding redaction and archive download; a Free tier exists with password links, expiry and analytics (pricing). The room is a document-handling control, not a regulatory opinion, which comes from counsel. The build is in our M&A data room playbook and how to write a CIM; the fundraising variant is in best data rooms for startups.

What do fintech and payments M&A advisers charge?

A retainer plus a success fee, and not one firm on this bench publishes a fee percentage, searched September 16, 2026. The survey shape, from Axial's 2026 M&A Fee Guide (331 adviser responses collected in Q2 2026): average success fees "increased modestly across most deal sizes" against the prior year, "Lehman-style success fees remain the most common structure, while flat-percentage fees continue to gain adoption," and "71% of advisors charge some form of upfront fee, most commonly a monthly retainer or a one-time fixed engagement fee"; the Firmex US guide it cites had Lehman at 44%, flat at 26% and accelerator structures at 20%. The filed reference points bracket the range: Centerview's $70 million plus XMS' $40 million on Exact Sciences' $21 billion sale to Abbott, about 0.5%, and North Point's roughly $1.5 million on Farmer Bros' $61.2 million sale, about 2.5%, with a $250,000 opinion fee credited. The full ladder is in our M&A advisor fees guide. Three payments-specific terms to settle first: whether a paid valuation or assessment precedes the mandate, as TSG's April 2026 guidance says it does there; whether the fee base is enterprise value or cash at close net of any earnout on residuals; and which registered entity acts if the deal becomes a stock sale or adds a raise, because neither TSG nor 733Park runs securities offerings and the M&A-broker exemption excludes providing financing. FT Partners' public fee dispute with Circle, as reported in 2024-25, is the case for putting the tail period, the minimum fee and the fee base in writing before the engagement letter is signed.

So which fintech or payments M&A adviser should you hire?

The one whose dated evidence sits in your lane and whose registration matches your structure, because fintech and payments are three markets and the buyers and consents do not overlap. A merchant-acquiring ISO, payfac or portfolio seller prices on annual net revenue, TSG's 1x-7x with a 3.9x average, and needs the sponsor bank's consent and a re-registration under the buyer's acquirer: Wellesley Hills Financial for a registered chain, 733Park for an asset sale inside the exemption, TSG for the valuation, William Blair or D.A. Davidson once there is software in the revenue line. A licensed transmitter, wallet or crypto business needs every state's approval plus FinCEN re-registration inside 180 days: FT Partners, the only bench firm with a transmitter credit on the tape, with Houlihan Lokey or Piper Sandler when the business is closer to capital markets or digital assets. A fintech software or infrastructure company prices on ARR or EBITDA: William Blair for a sponsor-backed platform, D.A. Davidson below its size floor, KeyBanc for lending software, GP Bullhound or Arma for a UK or European seller, FT Partners or Houlihan Lokey at scale. Then sort your buyer list by consent posture before price, because the buyer who already holds three legs of the stack closes first.

Related resources

• Best technology and software M&A advisors, the hub this spoke deepens, and the best software M&A advisors and best financial services M&A advisors sibling benches.
• Top fintech investors, for a founder raising alongside or instead of a sale.
• City benches that currently catch this demand: Miami, Charlotte and New York.
• Best M&A advisors, M&A advisor fees and M&A advisor vs broker vs investment bank.
• M&A data room, how to write a CIM, quality of earnings and sell-side due diligence.
• Pricing and the M&A, due diligence, investment banking and RWA and stablecoins solution pages.

Frequently asked questions

Who are the best fintech M&A advisors?

Ten firms carry dated fintech adviser-of-record evidence and one, The Strawhecker Group, is named on payments-valuation volume, in three tiers. Tier 1: FT Partners (San Francisco, the only fintech-exclusive investment bank, FTP Securities LLC, CRD 129356), with the deepest dated 2025-26 payments series: Equiniti to Bullish ($4.2 billion, announced May 5, 2026), Deribit to Coinbase (closed August 14, 2025), AvidXchange to TPG and Corpay (closed October 2025) and Intermex to Western Union (announced August 2025, pending); William Blair (Chicago, CRD 1252), three closed payments deals dated on its own pages, Fortis (March 11, 2025), ACS Technologies to Vanco (December 1, 2025) and Cantaloupe (May 8, 2026); and Houlihan Lokey (Los Angeles, CRD 17708), first in PitchBook's 2025 global fintech M&A advisory ranking with 22 deals, ahead of Goldman Sachs 21, William Blair 15, Perella Weinberg 13 and FT Partners 12, as published by Houlihan Lokey. Tier 2: D.A. Davidson, Wellesley Hills Financial, 733Park, GP Bullhound, Arma Partners and The Strawhecker Group. Tier 3: KeyBanc Capital Markets and Piper Sandler.

Who are the best payments M&A advisors?

Split it by what you are selling. For a payments company or platform above roughly $50 million, the banks with dated 2025-26 payments credits are FT Partners (Equiniti, Intermex, AvidXchange), William Blair (Fortis, ACS Technologies to Vanco, Cantaloupe), Houlihan Lokey (Arroweye Solutions to CPI Card Group, completed May 6, 2025, per CPI's 8-K) and D.A. Davidson (Qolo to Computer Services, Inc., announced July 14-15, 2026). For a merchant-acquiring ISO, payment facilitator or residual portfolio, the specialists are Wellesley Hills Financial (Newton, Massachusetts; exclusive sell-side on Dealer Merchant Services to Priority Technology Holdings, October 2025; securities through its FINRA-member affiliate Wellesley Hills Securities, CRD 315364), 733Park (Boston; advised Alipse Payments on ReliantPay, July 2026; an M&A broker under the Exchange Act 15(b)(13) exemption, not FINRA-licensed by its own statement) and The Strawhecker Group (Omaha; more than 250 payments valuations; a business broker, not a broker-dealer, by its own disclaimer). Ask each which of its last five payments closes was a stock sale.

Which M&A advisors specialize in fintech exits under $50M?

Four firms on this bench work below $50 million with checkable evidence. Wellesley Hills Financial has served lower-middle-market fintech, payments and B2B software companies since 2007, ran the Dealer Merchant Services sale to Priority in October 2025 and launched a Merchant Portfolios marketplace in April 2025 for residual-stream sales. 733Park states $10 billion in transactions and 200-plus closed deals and works under the federal M&A-broker exemption, which by statute covers privately held companies with EBITDA under $25 million or gross revenues under $250 million. The Strawhecker Group has supported transactions from $1 million to $10 billion-plus in assessed value and routes securities deals through Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide. D.A. Davidson, which absorbed Marlin & Associates in 2021, is the registered mid-market name nearest the band; it publishes no minimum. The test is structure, not the firm's minimum: an asset sale of a portfolio can be run by any of the three specialists; a stock sale or rollover of a private company can be run by a FINRA member or a firm inside the exemption; a raise needs a FINRA member.

FT Partners vs William Blair vs Houlihan Lokey: which is better for a payments sale?

Three kinds of evidence, so the answer is lane-specific. FT Partners is the only fintech-exclusive bank and its dated 2025-26 series is the deepest in payments and licensed money transmission: Equiniti to Bullish ($4.2 billion, announced May 5, 2026), Intermex to Western Union ($16.00 per share, announced August 10, 2025, a licensed money transmitter), AvidXchange ($2.2 billion, announced May 6, 2025, closed October 2025), Deribit to Coinbase (closed August 14, 2025) and Hidden Road to Ripple (closed October 2025); PitchBook ranked it fifth globally in 2025 with 12 fintech deals. William Blair is the sponsor-heavy mid-market payments bank with three closed deals dated on its own tombstones, Fortis (March 11, 2025), ACS Technologies to Vanco (December 1, 2025) and the buy-side on Cantaloupe (May 8, 2026); third in the PitchBook count with 15. Houlihan Lokey led that ranking with 22, and its payments-specific 2025 credit is Arroweye Solutions to CPI Card Group, completed May 6, 2025. Public-company or licensed-transmitter seller: FT Partners. Sponsor-backed embedded-payments platform: William Blair. Breadth across fintech, or a restructuring angle: Houlihan Lokey.

Is 2026 a good time to sell a fintech or payments company?

Deal counts are flat and values are up, which favours a seller with a capability a network or a bank wants. The Strawhecker Group's count of payments M&A deals ran 114 in 2020, 132 at the 2021 peak, 72 in 2023, 78 in 2024 and 63 through mid-September 2025; TSG put 2025 activity at $48.4 billion and counted 36 deals announced through June 24, 2026, about the same as the same period of 2025, with about $20 billion of reported value on the 11 transactions that disclosed terms (Payments Dive, July 20, 2026). The buyers driving value are card networks (Mastercard agreed to buy BVNK for up to $1.8 billion), bank charters (Capital One agreed to buy Brex for $5.15 billion in January 2026) and larger public strategics, with sponsors re-entering (Thoma Bravo's roughly $2 billion Olo purchase, per TSG). BCG and FT Partners' Global FinTech Report 2026 has fintech revenues at $504 billion, up 22%. For an acquiring book, waiting does not fix attrition; for a licensed transmitter, the approval calendar is the same in 2027.

How are merchant residual portfolios valued?

On a multiple of annual net revenue, with the multiple as an output of the portfolio's characteristics rather than the driver of value. The only dated published range is The Strawhecker Group's October 2024 infographic: payments-company and portfolio transactions in its dataset ranged from 1x to 7x annual net revenue with an average of 3.9x, and TSG's point in publishing the scatter was that if a net-revenue multiple were truly meaningful the plots would cluster, and they do not. Its drivers are sales channel (W-2, 1099, integrated, bank, referral, digital), geography, merchant size (typically the biggest driver, because age, price, profitability and attrition all correlate with annual card volume), merchant type, technology, products and security, and synergies to the buyer. Residual buyers usually quote in months of net residual; TSG's data expresses the same thing as an annual net-revenue multiple, and no dated published range exists for the monthly form, so treat any months-of-residual number you are quoted as one buyer's bid, not a market.

Will my payments company be priced on net revenue, EBITDA or ARR?

It depends which of three businesses a buyer thinks it is buying, and the denominator moves the number more than the multiple does. Call it the Two-Price Rule. A merchant portfolio or an ISO whose value is a residual stream is priced on annual net revenue, TSG's 1x-7x range with a 3.9x average in October 2024, because the asset is a set of merchant relationships with an attrition curve. A fintech software or infrastructure platform with recurring software revenue is priced on ARR or EBITDA by the bank bench, the way William Blair's Fortis and Cantaloupe credits and D.A. Davidson's Qolo credit were run. A licensed money transmitter or wallet sits between the two, priced on transaction economics and the licences it holds, which is why Intermex's sale to Western Union carried a 72% premium at $16.00 per share. What moves a company from the first price to the second is owned software, integrated distribution and a revenue line a buyer can call recurring; what keeps it on the first is a book a processor can simply migrate.

Does selling a payments company need money transmitter licence approval?

Only if the company holds money transmitter licences, and whether it does turns on the payment-processor carve-out. Under 31 CFR 1010.100(ff)(5), the term money transmitter does not include a person that only acts as a payment processor to facilitate the purchase of, or payment of a bill for, a good or service through a clearance and settlement system by agreement with the creditor or seller, judged on facts and circumstances; most acquirers, ISOs and payment facilitators settling through a sponsor bank rely on it, while wallets, remittance, stored-value and crypto businesses usually hold state licences. Where licences exist, each licensing state must approve the change of control. Texas Finance Code Chapter 152 (SB 895, effective September 1, 2023) is the worked example: control means 25 percent or more of the voting interests, a majority of key individuals or a controlling influence; written approval from the commissioner before acquiring control; approval or denial within 60 days of the completion date, extendable, with deemed approval otherwise; and a streamlined 30-day notice route only for an acquirer already approved in Texas or an MSB-accredited state with no material business-plan change. Louisiana's HB 1230 took effect July 1, 2026; Alaska's SB 86 takes effect mostly July 1, 2027; other states vary.

Do I have to re-register with FinCEN when my company is sold?

If the company is a money services business, yes, and the clock is 180 days. 31 CFR 1022.380(b)(4) lists three re-registration events: a change in ownership or control that requires re-registration under state law; a transfer of more than 10 percent of the voting power or equity interests of the MSB, other than an MSB that must report the transfer to the Securities and Exchange Commission; and a more-than-50-percent increase in the number of agents during a registration period. The registration form must be filed not later than 180 days after the change, and that year starts a new two-year registration period. Under paragraph (c), any person who owns or controls an MSB is responsible for registering it, so the obligation lands on the buyer. The carve-out that decides whether this leg bites is 31 CFR 1010.100(ff)(5): a business that only acts as a payment processor through a clearance and settlement system by agreement with the creditor or seller is not a money transmitter, so an acquiring business usually escapes this leg while a wallet, remittance or crypto business does not. The buyer reads the 31 CFR 1022.210 AML program alongside the registration.

What happens to my sponsor bank agreement and Visa registration when I sell my ISO or payfac?

The registration is the bank's, not yours, so a sale is a consent and a re-registration event rather than a transfer. Under the Visa Core Rules edition dated April 18, 2026, a Member must register a Third Party Agent with Visa before any contracted services or transaction activity and Visa may deny or reject that registration at any time with or without cause (§1.9.8.6); registration is specific to each Acquirer and requires a separate registration by each Acquirer whose Acquiring Identifier the agent uses (§1.9.8.7); a senior officer of the Member must review all documentation and conduct a background investigation of the principals before contracting (§10.2.2.1); and an Acquirer must obtain a unique Payment Facilitator identifier from Visa for each payfac (§1.5.1.10). Effective October 24, 2026 in the US and Canada regions, Members must disclose the identifiers, BINs and account ranges used by each agent and update that information annually and following any changes. In practice: the sponsor bank's consent comes first; if the buyer keeps your sponsor, the agent record is updated and the new principals re-vetted; if it moves the portfolio to its own sponsor, that acquirer registers you afresh. Mastercard runs a parallel service-provider registration through the sponsoring acquirer.

My fintech adviser is not on BrokerCheck. Is that a red flag?

Not by itself, because the payments lane runs on three registration shapes and only one shows up under the brand name. Wellesley Hills Financial introduces securities transactions through its affiliate Wellesley Hills Securities, a FINRA and SIPC member (CRD 315364), so the brand returns nothing and the affiliate returns a record. 733Park states that it is not FINRA-licensed by design and works under the federal M&A-broker exemption in Exchange Act §15(b)(13), which exempts an M&A broker from registration on privately held companies with EBITDA under $25 million or gross revenues under $250 million, provided the broker does not hold or transmit the funds or securities, provide financing, bind a party, or represent both sides without written disclosure and consent. The Strawhecker Group states that it is a business broker not registered as a broker-dealer and routes securities transactions through Corporate Finance Associates Worldwide. The eight other bench firms are active in the SEC's adviser-info database. It stops being academic when the deal is a stock sale, includes a capital raise, or rolls your equity into a sponsor's holding company: ask, in writing, which registered entity will act on that leg.

What should the data room look like when the bidders are processors I compete with and my sponsor bank is watching?

Built so that no processor sees your merchant-level economics until its bid is real, and so the sponsor bank's consent package is a separate workspace. For a $12 million-net-revenue ISO with four processors, one sponsor-backed platform and a bank in the room, I would run a separate Peony data room per bidder so no party sees another's tranche, activity or questions; stage disclosure so the portfolio summary and attrition curve open first, the AML program and sponsor-bank audit findings in the middle, and merchant-level residual reports, ISV contracts and agent agreements last; put an NDA gate in front of anything that opens, Simple NDA on Business and a signed NDA with a countersigned PDF on Data Room; use per-viewer dynamic watermarks on Data Room so a forwarded residual report traces to the person who opened it; and read page-level analytics to see which processor spent an hour on the attrition schedule, the bidder building a migration model or a retrade. Password-protected links, expiry and analytics are free; view-only, screenshot protection, revocation and Simple NDA on Business at $30 per admin per month; dynamic watermarking, signed NDA and a custom domain on Data Room at $52 per admin per month billed annually; redaction and archive download on Deal Team at $64. Peony serves 6,800+ customers on this layer, rated 4.8 on G2 and 4.9 on Capterra. The room is a document-handling control, not a regulatory opinion.

What do fintech M&A advisors charge?

A retainer plus a success fee, and not one firm on this bench publishes a rate. Axial's 2026 M&A Fee Guide, based on 331 adviser responses collected in Q2 2026, found average success fees rose modestly across most deal sizes, that Lehman-style success fees remain the most common structure while flat-percentage fees continue to gain adoption, and that 71% of advisers charge some form of upfront fee, most commonly a monthly retainer or a one-time engagement fee; the Firmex US guide it cites had Lehman at 44%, flat at 26% and accelerator structures at 20%. The filed reference points bracket the range: Centerview's $70 million plus XMS' $40 million on Exact Sciences' $21 billion sale to Abbott, about 0.5%, and North Point's roughly $1.5 million on Farmer Bros' $61.2 million sale, about 2.5%. Payments-specific: The Strawhecker Group's April 2026 guidance is that a paid valuation or assessment precedes the sale mandate, and neither TSG nor 733Park runs capital raises or securities offerings, so a seller who needs a raise beside the sale adds a FINRA member. FT Partners was in a public fee dispute with Circle, as reported in 2024-25, a reason to settle the fee base, the tail and the minimum in writing before signing.

A processor sent me an unsolicited offer for my ISO. Should I run a process anyway?

Usually yes, because an unsolicited processor offer is priced to its migration economics, not to what a second bidder would pay, and the arithmetic favours the fee. On an acquiring book priced near TSG's 3.9x average annual net revenue, one extra turn from a competing bid is worth more than a Lehman-family success fee on the whole deal, and the buyers who pay the extra turn are the ones a specialist can reach: a sponsor-backed platform, a strategic that already holds sponsor-bank relationships and can take the streamlined route on any licences, or a bank charter that wants the capability. The adviser also runs the calendar the offer letter ignores: the sponsor bank's consent, the agent re-registration under the buyer's acquirer, any state change-of-control filings, and the 180-day FinCEN re-registration if the business is an MSB. The tells of a fixed-accretion offer are a price stated before anyone has read your attrition curve, a diligence list that starts with your merchant file, and a short exclusivity ask. Negotiating directly is right when the buyer is your own sponsor bank or an ISV partner that already sees your economics and the price already clears a defensible net-revenue multiple.

Sources

• The Strawhecker Group: "From Mega Deals to Niche Plays" (October 6, 2025); "What is my multiple?" infographic (October 23, 2024); "Ready to Sell?" (April 29, 2026); M&A page and disclaimer. https://tsgpayments.com/from-mega-deals-to-niche-plays-inside-the-new-era-of-payments-ma/; https://tsgpayments.com/what-is-my-ma-payments-multiple/; https://thestrawgroup.com/mergers-and-acquisitions/
• Payments Dive, "Payments M&A spools up," Lynne Marek (July 20, 2026). https://www.paymentsdive.com/news/payments-ma-spools-up/
• BCG and FT Partners, Global FinTech Report 2026 (June 2026); FT Partners and Blue Dot Investors, "The Coming FinTech Liquidity Supercycle"; FT Partners transaction releases. https://www.ftpartners.com/news
• Houlihan Lokey fintech page (PitchBook 2025 fintech M&A advisory rankings) and transaction pages; CPI Card Group 8-K filed May 7, 2025, accession 0001558370-25-006601. https://hl.com/industries/fintech/; https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1641614/000155837025006601/pmts-20250506xex99d1.htm
• William Blair tombstone pages (Fortis; ACS Technologies/Vanco; 365 Retail Markets/Cantaloupe). https://www.williamblair.com/News
• Firm pages read September 16, 2026: dadavidson.com/About-Us/News; wellesleyhillsfinancial.com/press; 733park.com; gpbullhound.com; armapartners.com/deals; key.com technology page; pipersandler.com/financial-services.
• Texas SB 895 (88th Legislature), enrolled text, Finance Code Chapter 152. https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/SB00895F.htm
• Sheppard Mullin via National Law Review on Louisiana HB 1230 (June 27, 2026) and Alaska SB 86 (July 30, 2026). https://natlawreview.com/article/louisiana-enacts-comprehensive-money-transmission-law-mirroring-laws-other-states; https://natlawreview.com/article/alaska-modernizes-money-transmission-framework-cover-virtual-currency
• 31 CFR 1022.380, 1010.100(ff) and 1022.210, eCFR point-in-time September 1, 2026. https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-X/part-1022/subpart-C/section-1022.380; https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-X/part-1010/subpart-A/section-1010.100; https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-31/subtitle-B/chapter-X/part-1022/subpart-B/section-1022.210
• Visa Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules, edition dated April 18, 2026 (§§1.5.1.10, 1.9.8.6, 1.9.8.7, 10.1.3, 10.2.1.5, 10.2.2.1). https://usa.visa.com/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf
• 15 U.S.C. § 78o(b)(13). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/78o
• Axial, 2026 M&A Fee Guide (last updated July 23, 2026). https://www.axial.net/forum/ma-fee-guide-2025-2026/
• SEC adviser-info firm database, searched September 16, 2026, for the CRD numbers above.

About the author: Sean Yu is the co-founder of Peony, the data room platform used by 6,800+ customers across M&A, fundraising, and diligence workflows, including payments companies and their advisers running confidential sales. Before Peony, Sean worked in M&A at Nomura, early-stage VC at Backed VC and growth equity at Target Global. Peony is not an M&A adviser; it is the confidential room a deal process runs in. Contact: sean@peony.ink • LinkedIn.