If you sell POS systems like Clover or build SaaS with embedded payments, your customers don’t care about buzzwords. They care about:
- Getting paid faster
- Paying less in fees
- Making checkout easier for their customers
The trends below are already growing fast in 2025 and are likely to feel mainstream by the end of 2026, based on industry reports about digital wallets, instant payments, and SoftPOS.
- “Tap Moves Off the Counter” — SoftPOS and mobile-first payments
What’s happening:
SoftPOS (software point-of-sale) turns phones and tablets into full payment devices. Merchants can accept contactless cards and wallets by having customers tap directly on a mobile device, often without extra hardware. Major networks and tech companies now support tap-on-phone, and SoftPOS volumes are growing quickly worldwide.
Why it matters for agents:
- You’re no longer just offering a countertop terminal. You’re offering Clover + mobile acceptance for line-busting, delivery, and field services.
- SoftPOS is perfect for micro-merchants, pop-ups, and seasonal businesses who don’t want to buy extra hardware.
Why it matters for ISVs:
- If your app runs on Android or iOS, customers will increasingly expect in-app tap-to-pay for service calls, events, and on-site bookings.
- Supporting SoftPOS through a modern gateway helps your product feel current and “built or 2026,” not stuck in 2018.
- Cards You Can’t Lose — Virtual Cards and Digital Wallets
Since the pandemic, the rise of virtual cards and digital wallets has made them go from a “nice-to-have" to an essential business function:
- The global virtual card market is projected to grow several trillion dollars in volume in just a few years.
- In the U.S., many consumers now use digital payments, many rely on digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay as primary methods.
Virtual cards and digital wallets give businesses more control over spending and give customers faster, easier ways to pay.
Why it matters for agents:
- Open new conversations about how merchants pay for others: vendors, subscriptions, and staff expenses via virtual cards.
- Ensuring Clover and other POS setups support these digital wallets helps your merchants avoid losing sales when customers don’t have a credit card on them.
Why it matters for ISVs:
- If your product touches payables or expenses, embedding virtual card capabilities and wallet-friendly checkouts makes your platform “stickier.”
- Wallet-ready and tokenized card flows are becoming standard on mobile; forms that only accept manual card entry feel outdated.
- Embedded Payments Stop Asking for Permission
Payments are starting to be built directly into tools like booking systems, field service apps, medical portals, membership platforms, and more. As payments move further into software, the need for reliable in-person acceptance doesn’t go away. It simply shifts toward hardware that supports those embedded workflows
Why it matters for agents:
- Ensuring the in-person experience is fast, stable, and dependable, which many embedded systems don’t account for at the hardware level.
- Helping merchants understand equipment costs, add-on fees, and long-term pricing, so they avoid expensive and restrictive setups.
- Offering real human help, device replacement, and ongoing service for merchants.
Why it matters for ISVs:
- Payments are now a core product feature and often a major revenue stream, not just an add-on integration.
- You’ll need a flexible payments partner (like Payarc) that provides APIs, SDKs, reporting, and risk tools that fit your roadmap instead of slowing it down.
What Does This Mean for 2026?
The shifts happening in payments are actively reshaping what merchants expect from their providers and what SaaS platforms need under the hood. For anyone selling payments or building payments into software, the real advantage comes from working with a partner that’s already aligned with where the industry is going.
As payments get faster, smarter, and more tightly integrated into everyday tools, choosing the right partner makes it much easier to stay ahead without reinventing everything yourself. Payarc is designed to support where the market is headed, so you can focus on growing your business while our payments keep you ahead.