Getting paid is the whole point.

A jewelry sale ought to end with money in the jeweler’s account. For Arrion Jones, the founder of Diligent Diamonds, it once ended with a different calculation. In a case study published by Kurv, Jones described an earlier processing experience in which $14,000 of $17,000 in sales was withheld. She still had vendors to pay. The transaction had worked. Her business could not use most of the proceeds.

Jones eventually chose Kurv for her first physical store in Tampa’s Citrus Park Mall. She wanted equipment suited to her counter and someone who kept in touch. This is one company-published customer account, rather than evidence that every merchant will have the same experience. But it reveals something useful about payments: accepting a card is only the opening move.

Buy the missing pieces

Kurv began as Electronic Merchant Systems, a merchant-services business founded in 1988. Transaction adviser FT Partners identifies Jim Weiland as its founder. By the time Afshin Yazdian arrived as CEO in 2023, the company had decades of experience connecting merchants to the card-payment system. The question was what to build around that experience.

The answer arrived in pieces. EMS had acquired restaurant-software provider Total Touch POS in 2018. It took a majority stake in Paysley in 2022, acquired PaymentCloud in January 2024, and completed its Paysley acquisition in August 2025. Peel Payments also joined the group. These purchases brought additional software capabilities and distribution into the same organization.

Ownership changed along the way. In August 2024, BharCap Partners announced a majority investment, with participation from management led by Yazdian. Bain Capital and Group 1001 provided financing and equity co-investment. That sequence matters: the November 2025 public rebrand followed an ownership change and acquisitions. The shorter name arrived with a broader business underneath it.

The phone joins the counter

Consider the different places a merchant might finish a sale: a shop counter, a customer’s doorstep, an online checkout, an invoice sent after the work. Kurv offers tools for each. Its customers span retailers, restaurants, healthcare practices, automotive businesses, field services and business-to-business sellers. The common requirement is getting paid without inventing a separate administrative routine for every setting.

Paysley supplied a mobile-oriented set of capabilities, including payment links and QR codes. Kurv’s merchant app brings payments, customer information and inventory into a connected workflow. Its December 2025 announcement added Tap to Pay on Android alongside its existing iPhone offering. With compatible devices, merchants can accept contactless payments using their phones without an additional reader.

The practical benefit is easier to understand than the product vocabulary. A field-service business can request payment where the job finishes. An online seller can send an invoice or checkout link. A shop can choose dedicated hardware. Those are different tools for different moments, with reporting and account management intended to bring the resulting activity together.

A second checkout, behind the checkout

There is another customer in this story: the person selling payment services to the merchant. Kurv works with independent agents and independent sales organizations, known as ISOs. Their daily work includes collecting applications, obtaining signatures, following approvals and checking the recurring commissions called residuals. An awkward handoff here can slow a merchant before the first sale.

In July 2026, Kurv launched its agent portal nationwide. Applications can be submitted digitally, contracts signed electronically and completed submissions routed to underwriting. Portfolio dashboards and residual reports make the agent’s book of business easier to inspect. The company says direct input from field agents shaped the design.

“The Kurv Agent Portal exists because agents asked for a better, faster way to drive efficiency and scale.”

Afshin Yazdian · July 2026

That is a concrete lesson other businesses can copy: give the distribution partner a better working day. Faster signatures and clearer account status are unglamorous improvements. They also remove steps between an interested customer and an operating account. Kurv’s market position rests partly on this combination of merchant tools, underwriting and a supported sales network.

The arithmetic deserves its own screen

For merchants, the price has several layers. Kurv advertises conditional direct-signup rates of 2.50% plus ten cents for swiped payments and 2.90% plus twenty-five cents for keyed or online payments. On a $100 sale, that means $2.60 or $3.15 respectively, before other applicable charges. These examples are arithmetic, not an individual merchant quote.

Portal subscriptions are separate: Start is advertised at $0 monthly, followed by $9.95, $29.95 and $59.95 tiers with additional capabilities and transaction charges. The processing page also discloses possible monthly minimums, noncompliance charges and an equipment-return charge. A merchant should price the actual combination of acceptance, software and hardware required, then read the agreement.

Keep the person in the system

Kurv competes in a market where merchants can also consider Square, Stripe, Clover-based providers and bank merchant services. Its argument combines connected payment tools with underwriting and 24/7 U.S.-based support. The useful comparison is whether those pieces suit the business’s transaction size, selling channels and existing software.

Phone acceptance needs a compatible device. Specialized workflows need compatible integrations. More software features only help when someone uses them. Before switching, a merchant can walk through one ordinary sale, one refund and one support problem, asking how each would work under the proposed terms.

Jones’s story begins with money she could not reach. Kurv’s answer is a wider set of tools and a service relationship around the transaction. For a business owner evaluating it, the test remains wonderfully concrete: can this setup take the payment, make the terms understandable and get help involved when the routine stops being routine?