The Atlanta company that spent 25 years becoming invisible - and essential - to how the world gets paid.
Every time a card taps a terminal at a coffee shop, a fan buys a hot dog at a stadium, or a shopper checks out online, an invisible relay of authorization, settlement and reporting fires in under a second. Global Payments Inc. is one of the companies that runs that relay - roughly 94 billion times a year, in 153 currencies, across more than 175 countries.
Trading on the New York Stock Exchange as GPN and headquartered in Atlanta, Global Payments is not a consumer brand. Most of its work happens behind the point of sale, inside the software that restaurants, retailers, universities and enterprises use to take money and run their operations. In January 2026 it completed one of the largest reshufflings in payments history - buying Worldpay while selling off its own card-issuing business - and emerged as a focused, pure-play merchant solutions company processing about $3.7 trillion in payment volume a year.
At its heart, Global Payments is a merchant acquirer: it authorizes, captures and settles card, digital and contactless payments for businesses, then reports it all back. This is the plumbing beneath in-store, online and mobile checkout.
Customers range from single-location restaurants and independent retailers to multi-location quick-service chains, stadiums, cafeterias, universities and large enterprises - spanning 175+ countries.
Businesses juggle terminals, e-commerce, loyalty, reporting and compliance. Global Payments' pitch is to fold those into one platform so a merchant runs commerce - not a patchwork of vendors.
Genius is a POS command center for business operations - unifying more than a dozen products into a single, configurable platform.
On the 2025 launch of the Genius platform
For years, Global Payments grew by acquisition - Heartland, TSYS, EVO and others - which left it with overlapping point-of-sale systems. In 2025 it answered that sprawl with Genius, a single POS platform built on one shared code base. New hardware runs as a countertop terminal, a mobile unit or an all-in-one kiosk, and management says rolling into a new country now takes weeks rather than quarters because only compliance layers need rewriting, not the whole system.
A unified, configurable point-of-sale system consolidating more than a dozen legacy payment and commerce tools into one code base.
Vertical editions tailored to restaurants, retailers, multi-location enterprises, stadiums, venues and universities.
Global e-commerce and omnichannel processing, acquired in January 2026, extending reach in online and enterprise payments.
Authorization, settlement, reporting and value-added services across 175+ countries and 153 currencies.
Payments, POS and business software serving small and mid-sized US merchants.
Cloud practice-management and billing software for healthcare providers.
Global Payments earns most of its revenue from transaction-based fees on the payment volume it processes. Layered on top are recurring software and SaaS subscriptions, hardware sales, and value-added services such as analytics, fraud tools and reporting. It reaches merchants three ways: directly, through bank and independent-sales-organization partners, and through integrated software vendors that embed its payments.
In 2024 the company reported $10.1 billion in revenue. Its fourth-quarter 2025 adjusted net revenue reached $2.32 billion, and management targets $600 million in annual run-rate cost synergies within three years of the Worldpay close.
The payments market is crowded - Fiserv's Clover, FIS, Stripe, Adyen, Block's Square, PayPal, Shift4 and Toast all compete for pieces of it. Global Payments' distinguishing move in 2026 was subtraction: rather than trying to do everything, it sold its card-issuing (issuer solutions) business to FIS and used the same transaction to acquire Worldpay, betting entirely on the merchant side.
That leaves it a pure-play merchant solutions company with global scale and a unified product spine in Genius. Where developer-first rivals like Stripe and Adyen win on APIs and where Square owns the micro-merchant, Global Payments leans on breadth of geography, vertical software depth, and long-standing bank distribution.
Focus is a decision, not a feeling. Sometimes growth means subtracting - and Global Payments sold a profitable business to prove it.
The company traces its origins to the payment-processing operations of National Data Corporation.
Global Payments becomes an independent public company trading under the ticker GPN.
Acquires United Card Service in Russia, extending its acquiring footprint abroad.
Buys Heartland Payment Systems for about $4.3 billion, deepening its US small-business reach.
Merges with Total System Services in a landmark deal that adds issuer processing at scale.
Acquires EVO Payments for roughly $4 billion, adding merchants across new markets.
Unifies more than a dozen POS products into one platform and announces the Worldpay acquisition.
Completes the ~$24.25 billion acquisition of Worldpay and sale of Issuer Solutions to FIS, becoming a pure-play merchant company.
Global Payments is a leading payments technology company delivering innovative software and services to customers globally.
The combination with Worldpay creates a leading pure-play merchant solutions company with unmatched global scale.
Genius gives merchants a single, configurable system - rolling out in new countries in weeks rather than quarters.
It provides payment technology and software that let businesses accept and process card, digital and contactless payments across in-store, online and mobile channels, plus point-of-sale systems and business software.
Yes. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker GPN and is a member of the S&P 500.
In Atlanta, Georgia, United States.
In January 2026 Global Payments acquired Worldpay from FIS and GTCR while selling its own Issuer Solutions business (formerly TSYS) to FIS - a swap valued at roughly $24.25 billion that made it a pure-play merchant company.
Genius is the company's unified point-of-sale platform, launched in 2025, consolidating more than a dozen payment and commerce tools into one configurable system for restaurants, retailers, enterprises and universities.
Product demos, executive interviews and press coverage from public sources:
▶ Genius POS demo (search) ▶ Cameron Bready interview (search) Worldpay acquisition Investor relations