Whitepaper

Building and Scaling a Payment Service Provider

A Strategic Guide for PSPs in 2026

The global payments market is projected to grow from $3.16T in 2025 to $5.30T by 2030 (Mordor Intelligence). Taking a share of that growth means making the right infrastructure decisions early. Written by Andrew Riabchuk, Akurateco’s Founder and CTO, this guide covers what it takes to launch a new PSP or scale an existing one, with five real client stories.

You’ll learn:

  • Launching a PSP: what’s driving new players into payments, plus the hurdles they face: licensing (some regulators want a working platform before they approve), time-to-market pressure and local payment method integrations
  • Scaling an established PSP: how to modernize legacy systems without disrupting operations, add modular features, expand into new regions and add multi-acquirer routing
  • Build vs. lease: the real trade-offs in cost, timeline (1–2 years to build vs. weeks to lease), compliance and customization, and when a hybrid approach makes sense
  • Payment methods by region: Europe, North America, LATAM, MENA, Africa and APAC, from PIX and BLIK to M-PESA and super apps, plus a market-entry checklist
  • Technologies shaping 2026: network tokenization, real-time payments, open banking, AI-driven fraud prevention, BNPL, stablecoins and cloud infrastructure, with a 5-step adoption framework
  • 5 case studies: how MontyPay, CPS, TESS Payments, Platon and DineroPay launched, migrated or got licensed, from multi-continent SaaS rollouts to SAMA- and QCB-compliant on-premises setups

© 2026 Akurateco. All Rights Reserved.

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The global payments market is projected to grow from $3.16T in 2025 to $5.30T by 2030 (Mordor Intelligence). Taking a share of that growth means making the right infrastructure decisions early. Written by Andrew Riabchuk, Akurateco’s Founder and CTO, this guide covers what it takes to launch a new PSP or scale an existing one, with five real client stories.

You’ll learn:

  • Launching a PSP: what’s driving new players into payments, plus the hurdles they face: licensing (some regulators want a working platform before they approve), time-to-market pressure and local payment method integrations
  • Scaling an established PSP: how to modernize legacy systems without disrupting operations, add modular features, expand into new regions and add multi-acquirer routing
  • Build vs. lease: the real trade-offs in cost, timeline (1–2 years to build vs. weeks to lease), compliance and customization, and when a hybrid approach makes sense
  • Payment methods by region: Europe, North America, LATAM, MENA, Africa and APAC, from PIX and BLIK to M-PESA and super apps, plus a market-entry checklist
  • Technologies shaping 2026: network tokenization, real-time payments, open banking, AI-driven fraud prevention, BNPL, stablecoins and cloud infrastructure, with a 5-step adoption framework
  • 5 case studies: how MontyPay, CPS, TESS Payments, Platon and DineroPay launched, migrated or got licensed, from multi-continent SaaS rollouts to SAMA- and QCB-compliant on-premises setups

© 2026 Akurateco. All Rights Reserved.