Usio, Inc., along with its subsidiaries, FiCentive, Inc. and Zbill, Inc., provides integrated electronic payment services, including credit and debit card-based processing services and transaction processing via the Automated Clearing House, or ACH network to billers and retailers. The company also has an additional wholly-owned subsidiary, Usio Output Solutions, Inc., which is the entity for the Output Solutions operations. In addition, the company operates various product websites, such as www...
Usio, Inc., along with its subsidiaries, FiCentive, Inc. and Zbill, Inc., provides integrated electronic payment services, including credit and debit card-based processing services and transaction processing via the Automated Clearing House, or ACH network to billers and retailers. The company also has an additional wholly-owned subsidiary, Usio Output Solutions, Inc., which is the entity for the Output Solutions operations. In addition, the company operates various product websites, such as www.usio.com, www.singularpayments.com, www.payfacinabox.com, www.ficentive.com, www.akimbocard.com, and www.usiooutput.com.
As a cloud-based, Fintech payment processor, the company serves multiple industry verticals with technology that facilitates payment acceptance and funds disbursement in a single, full-stack ecosystem. The company provides payment acceptance through multiple payment methods including: payment facilitation, prepaid card and electronic billing products and services to businesses, merchants and consumers. The company seeks to grow its business both organically through the continued development and enhancement of its products and services and through acquisitions of new products and services. The company will continue to look for opportunities (both internally and externally) to enhance its offerings to meet customer demands as they arise.
Usio has entered a number of market verticals within the payments industry in order to satisfy the growing payment needs of consumers and merchants across the United States. Through its innovative Prepaid Debit Card platform, the company offers a variety of prepaid card products such as reloadable, incentive, promotional and corporate card programs. Combined with its printing and mailing services, through the acquisition of IMS in December of 2020, the company can satisfy the diverse requirements of customer needs with physical and virtual document creation and distribution, including traditional paper checks. The company’s Consumer Choice product developed and debuted in 2022 that provides flexible ways to initiate a variety of payment distributions through a multitude of payment methods including physical prepaid and virtual cards, ACH, paper checks, real-time PINless debit and others. This offering allows the company a superior opportunity to increase its cross-selling efforts through all of its payment methods.
With the growing need for faster payment methods, the company continues to invest in technology that can help it further expand its suite of payment technology. With the rise of Real Time Payments, or RTP, the company began expansion into this market vertical in 2023, which serves as an alternative to ACH payments. As well, it continues to enhance its existing product offerings, with improvements in reporting, data management, fraud and risk monitoring, ease of access, and accelerations in client onboarding and implementation times. With its transition to a cloud-based platform, the company’s speed, security, and scalability in payment processing is further expanded, allowing it to seamlessly grow as the market demands.
Payment Acceptance: The company provides integrated electronic payment processing services to merchants and businesses, including credit, and debit card-based processing services and electronic funds transfer via the ACH network. The ACH network is a nationwide electronic funds transfer system that is regulated by the Federal Reserve and the National Automatic Clearing House Association, or NACHA, the electronic payments association, and provides for the clearing of electronic payments between participating financial institutions. The company’s ACH processing services enable merchants or businesses to both disburse and collect funds electronically using e-checks instead of traditional paper checks. An e-check is an electronic debit to a bank checking account that is initiated at the point-of-sale, on the Internet, over the telephone, or via a bill payment sent through the mail via a physical check. E-checks are processed using the ACH network. The company is one of nine companies that hold the prestigious NACHA certification for Third-Party Senders and were the second company to receive the certification and are the most tenured to hold the certification.
The company’s payment acceptance services are delivered in a variety of forms and situations. For example, its capabilities allow merchants to convert a paper check to an e-check or receive card authorization at the point-of-sale, allow its merchants’ respective customer service representatives to take e-check or card payments from their consumers by telephone, and enable their consumers to make e-check or card payments directly through the use of a website or by calling an interactive voice response telephone system.
Similarly, the company’s PINless debit product allows merchants to debit and credit accounts in real-time.
Card-Based Services: The company’s card-based processing services enable merchants to process both traditional card-present, tap-and-pay, or swipe transactions, as well as card-not-present transactions. A traditional card-present transaction occurs whenever a card holder physically presents a credit or debit card to a merchant at the point-of-sale. A tap-and-pay transaction occurs whenever a consumer taps their phone on a physical terminal utilizing third party wallet services like Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay.
Payment Facilitation: Following the completion of the Singular Payments acquisition in 2017, the company launched its payment facilitation, or PayFac, platform called PayFac-in-a-Box in late 2018 targeting partnership opportunities with app and software developers in bill-centric verticals, such as legal, healthcare, property management, utilities and insurance. The PayFac-in-a-Box platform 'integration layer' offers a simple integration experience for technology companies who are looking to monetize payments within an existing base of downstream clients. The added value of offering the company’s integration partners access to real-time merchant enrollment, credit card, debit card, ACH and prepaid card issuance capabilities through a single vendor partner relationship in face-to-face, mobile and virtual payment acceptance environments provides a true single channel commerce experience through an application programming interface, or API.
Prepaid and Incentive Card Services: Through its December 2014 acquisition of the assets of Akimbo Financial, Inc., the company added a highly talented technical staff of industry subject matter experts and an innovative cardholder service platform including cardholder web and mobile applications and launched what is its UsioCard business. As a result of this acquisition, through its subsidiary, FiCentive, Inc., the company offers customizable prepaid cards which companies use for expense management, incentives, refunds, claims and disbursements, as well as unique forms of compensation such as per diem payments, government disbursements, and similar payments. This comprehensive money disbursement platform allows businesses to pay their contractors, employees, or other recipients by choosing among a prepaid debit Mastercard, real-time deposit to a checking account, traditional ACH, direct deposit or paper check. These cardholder web and mobile applications have been fully integrated into FiCentive’s prepaid card core processor, and supports all program types and brands offered by FiCentive and its clients.
As part of its Prepaid card-based processing services, the company develops and manages a variety of Mastercard-branded prepaid card program types, including consumer reloadable, consumer gift, incentive, promotional, general and government disbursement and corporate expense cards. The company also offers prepaid cards to consumers for use as a tool to stay on budget, manage allowances and share money with family and friends. The company’s UsioCard platform supports Apple Pay, Samsung Pay and Google Pay.
The company has built long-standing and valuable relationships with premier banking institutions such as Fifth Third Bank, Sunrise Bank, TransPecos and others.
Electronic Billing: On December 15, 2020, the company entered into the business of electronic bill presentment, document composition, document decomposition and printing and mailing services serving hundreds of customers representing a wide range of industry verticals, including utilities and financial institutions through the acquisition of IMS. This product offering provides an outsourced solution for document design, print, and electronic delivery to potential customers and entities looking to reduce postage costs and increase efficiencies. This acquisition increased the company’s ability to grow new revenue streams and allowed it to reenter the electronic bill presentment and payment revenue stream.
Products and Services
The company’s suite of payment solutions is driven by a sophisticated infrastructure that merges its own technology with strategic alliances, offering secure, scalable, and resilient payment processing services. Leveraging the latest in cloud computing and cybersecurity, including Microsoft Azure's robust security features, the company ensures the protection of data transmissions and transactions. The company’s adoption of Azure's hub-spoke architecture and other cutting-edge technologies supports enhanced performance and security, facilitating seamless integrations with third-party processors and offering tailored payment services to meet the specific requirements of its clients.
The platform supports secure data exchanges using state-of-the-art encryption standards and secure communication protocols, using the latest technology in best-practices encryption to safeguard electronic transactions across the internet. With comprehensive data warehousing, the company offers efficient storage, retrieval, and data analysis, ensuring all sensitive information is encrypted and securely managed.
Payment Acceptance: The company’s service offerings encompass a broad spectrum of ACH transaction processing, including innovative solutions like Represented Check and Check Conversion for electronic payment facilitation. Clients have the flexibility to initiate transactions via its online portal or leverage its expertise for transaction processing on their behalf via a robust API set.
The company extends merchant services across major card networks (VISA, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, JCB), supported by online and physical terminal access. The company’s proprietary platform merges ACH and card processing capabilities, enabling businesses to handle both e-checks and card payments efficiently.
The expansion of the company’s platform and the transition to cloud-based infrastructure underscore its commitment to speed, security, and scalability in payment processing. The company’s direct Fed ACH system integration, facilitated by NACHA certification, exemplifies its efforts to optimize processing efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance merchant services.
Prepaid and Incentive Card Services: The company’s Prepaid and Incentive Card Issuance Services are anchored by its sophisticated processing platform, which supports an array of card program types in partnership with prominent banks and offers highly customizable digital solutions. A key feature of the company’s innovative service offerings is the integration of an external authorization engine that provides real-time transaction authorization through a unique dual-funding mechanism, enhancing transactional flexibility and user experience by allowing for the application of real-time value loads by the program managers. This engine, coupled with its comprehensive support for popular mobile wallets via Mastercard’s Digital Enablement Services, underscores its commitment to leveraging cutting-edge technology to deliver seamless and enriched payment experiences. The company’s platform's rapid custom solution deployment capability further cements its position as a leader in the market, demonstrating its dedication to innovation and operational agility in meeting the advanced payment solution needs of its clients.
Electronic Billing: Following the acquisition of Information Management Solutions, LLC, or IMS, the company enhanced and expanded its services to include electronic bill presentment and comprehensive document management solutions, catering to a wide array of industries. The company’s state-of-the-art digital printing capabilities, combined with its status as a seamless mailer with USPS, enable it to meet high-volume demands efficiently, ensuring it remains at the forefront of printing and mailing services. Output Solutions provides printing and mailing services to utilities, healthcare providers, credit unions, banks, governmental agencies, and manufacturing and other customers that have high volume billing and printing needs.
Relationships with Sponsors and Processors
The company has agreements with several processors that provide it, on a non-exclusive basis,with transaction processing and transmittal, transaction authorization and data capture, and access to various reporting tools. In order to provide payment processing services for ACH transactions, the company must maintain a relationship with an Originating Depository Financial Institution, or ODFI, in the ACH network. For the ODFI portion of its ACH business, the company has entered into agreements with the North American Banking Company, or NABC, Metropolitan Commercial Bank and TransPecos Banks. The company has an agreement with TriSource Solutions, LLC and an agreement with Global Payments, Inc. through which their member banks, Central Bank of St. Louis and Fifth Third Bank, sponsor it for membership in the Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover card associations and settle card transactions for its merchants. The company also maintains a bank sponsorship agreement with Sunrise Banks, N.A. for its prepaid card programs.
Sales and Marketing
The company sells and markets its ACH products and services primarily through non-exclusive resellers that act as an external sales force, with minimal direct investment in sales infrastructure and management, as well as direct contact by its sales personnel. The company’s direct sales efforts are coordinated by two sales executives and supported by other employees who function in sales capacities. The company’s primary market focus is on companies generating high volumes of electronic payment transactions. The company tailors its sales efforts to reach this market by pre-qualifying prospective sales leads through direct contact or market research. The company’s sales personnel typically initiate contact with prospective customers that it identifies as meeting its targeted customer profile.
The company also markets and sells its prepaid card program directly to government entities, corporations and to consumers through the Internet.
The company also offers additional services relating to electronic bill presentment, document composition, document decomposition and printing and mailing services serving hundreds of customers representing a wide range of industry verticals, including utilities and financial institutions. This service, which the company began with the acquisition of IMS in December 2020, allows it to cross-sell existing service offerings to its customers.
Customers
The company’s customers are consumers, merchants, and businesses that use its Automated Clearing House and/or card-based processing services in order to provide their consumers with the ability to pay for goods and services without having to use cash or a paper check. These merchant customers operate in a variety of predominately retail industries and are under contract with it to exclusively use the services that the company provides to them. Recent areas of customer focus have included system integrators, law firms, churches, charitable organizations, medical and dental clinics, doctor's offices, property management and homeowner associations, hospitality firms and municipalities. Most of the company’s merchant customers have signed long-term contracts, generally with three-year terms, that provide for volume-based transaction fees. The company had 6,281 customers at December 31, 2023. The company’s customers are geographically dispersed throughout the United States.
Competition
Many small and large companies compete with the company in providing payment processing services and related services to a wide range of merchants. There are a number of large transaction processors, including Fiserv, Inc., Elavon Inc., WorldPay, Stripe and Square that serve a broad market spectrum from large to small merchants and provide banking, automatic teller machine, and other payment-related services and systems in addition to card-based payment processing.
Trademarks and Domain Names
The company owns federally registered trademarks on the marks Usio, Payment Data Systems, Inc., Akimbo, FiCentive Innovations in Prepaid Card Solutions, Don’t change your bank, just your card and ZBILL and their respective designs.
Some of the company’s material websites are www.usio.com, www.payfacinabox.com, www.ficentive.com, www.akimbocard.com, and www.usiooutput.com
Government Regulation
The company’s business is subject to U.S. federal anti-money laundering laws and regulations, including the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), as amended by the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001, or collectively, the BSA.
History
The company was founded in 1998. It was incorporated in the state of Nevada in 1998. The company was formerly known as Payment Data Systems, Inc. and changed its name to Usio, Inc. in 2019.
The Analyst Price Target shows the analysts’ low, high, and average target at a glance.
