Electronic Payments wants the whole checkout.

At Cabana Club in the Florida Keys, the checkout problem began with a bathing suit. Guests had phones. Their wallets were elsewhere. The club's aging system could not take the tap payments those guests expected. A business surrounded by water had acquired a peculiar obstacle: getting paid by people who had sensibly left their possessions on dry land.

In Electronic Payments' September 2026 case study, Cabana Club reported cutting checkout from three or four minutes to about 90 seconds after switching to TableTurn. Staff training, previously five to seven days, sometimes took one. These are one customer's reported results. Still, the example captures something easily missed about financial technology: its usefulness can depend on something as ordinary as a missing pocket.

An auction detour, then a bigger market

Michael Nardy founded Electronic Payments in 2000 while attending Boston College. He had been selling auction software when customers revealed another need: a way to move money. The auction website did not last. Payment processing offered a much larger set of customers than an auction business could supply.

An Inc. profile from 2009 described the resulting market in wonderfully unglamorous terms: plumbers, supermarkets, gas stations, retail shops. Every one of them had to collect money. Every one presented a possible transaction. Nardy's observation was economic as much as technical. A service used repeatedly by ordinary businesses could become substantial without ever becoming a household name.

“Transactions are a commodity.”

Michael Nardy, speaking to Inc. in 2009

The interesting part was what the company put around that commodity. Electronic Payments developed its own merchant tools, supplied equipment, and kept technical support in-house. A transaction might look interchangeable on a spreadsheet. The surrounding work offered plenty of room to compete: installation, training, inventory, reconciliation, and the awkward moment when the queue grows faster than the register can clear it.

Follow the payment past the screen

Electronic Payments' product names describe different jobs. Exatouch combines a register with operational tools for retail, restaurants, and service businesses. It can manage inventory, employees, and customer information. TableTurn concentrates on restaurant operations. ProCharge handles jobs that may never involve a conventional counter: invoicing, recurring billing, mobile acceptance, and desktop payments. eGiftSolutions supplies gift cards and loyalty capabilities.

Underneath sits Cygma, the company's proprietary authorization and clearing platform. Authorization checks whether a payment can proceed; clearing handles the transaction information that follows. Owning both layers gives EPI more control over processing and funding. The company offers same-day funding through Cygma, with batch cutoffs and account arrangements shaping the actual experience.

This is a crowded market. Square, Toast, and Clover-based offerings also combine payments with business software. EPI's proposition rests on its particular combination of proprietary products, processor ownership, an agent channel, and round-the-clock U.S.-based technical support. Clover itself also appears in EPI's partner ecosystem. In payments, a competing product can turn up in your own sales catalogue.

The person who installs it matters

There are two customers in this business. One runs the store. The other helps the store choose and operate its payment system. Electronic Payments builds around both. Its channel includes independent sales organizations, agents, banks, and software partners. In its July 2025 anniversary announcement, EPI described a network of more than 1,500 agents serving 60,000 merchants.

The economic link is recurring processing revenue. Merchants pay under their agreements; qualifying sales partners receive residual income tied to their portfolios. EPI promotes training, demonstrations, and portfolio tools alongside those payments. The arrangement gives an agent a financial reason to care whether a merchant remains active. Good support has an identifiable place in the business model.

Hardware distribution also takes capital. In September 2015, Super G Funding announced a $5 million credit facility for EPI, intended partly to expand a Clover placement program offering zero upfront costs. That was access to borrowing, rather than a venture valuation or evidence that every dollar had been spent. It helps explain how a processor can finance equipment today against a continuing merchant relationship.

A free terminal still needs a contract

For the buyer, the word “free” requires a second question. EPI advertises no-upfront-cost Exatouch offers for selected markets. Its eGiftSolutions offer includes free gift card processing and no monthly or annual program fees, subject to an EPI merchant account. Neither statement supplies the complete economics of accepting ordinary card payments.

Compare the processing proposal, equipment terms, software charges, support, and cancellation provisions together. EPI's POS Bill of Rights, introduced in 2024, provides a useful agenda: understandable billing, fair contracts, responsive help, training, and usable data when a merchant leaves. Those are published commitments. The signed agreement is where a buyer should check how they apply.

The checkout travels

In August 2025, EPI acquired Handpoint, adding international embedded-payment technology and established software integrations. The acquisition announcement described connections across North America, Europe, and Africa. Financial terms were undisclosed. For software developers, the attraction is a payment integration that can travel with their product, using Handpoint's APIs and managed terminals.

For a merchant, the practical lesson stays close to the counter. Bring your difficult transactions to the demonstration: a refund, a split bill, a gift card, an inventory adjustment. Check the integrations your business already depends on. If those workflows do not fit, processor ownership alone cannot rescue the purchase. Cabana Club's missing wallets make a useful test: start with the thing stopping a customer from paying, then follow the problem all the way through.