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Payments companies have spent years bragging about how much volume their technology can handle. That could be the wrong measure.

The harder problem is what happens when every new dollar of payment volume arrives carrying another processor relationship, sponsor bank, software integration, distribution partner, underwriting requirement, risk rule and support obligation. Modern payment rails can absorb enormous transaction growth. The businesses operating on top of them cannot necessarily absorb the corresponding complexity.

“I don’t measure scalability only by transaction capacity any longer. Now the question is, how much more complexity can we handle with the infrastructure that we have?” Guy DiMaggio, senior vice president of Operations & Strategy at Maverick Payments, told PYMNTS for the PYMNTS 2026 B2B Event.

For DiMaggio, that means infrastructure has moved from cost center toward competitive capability.

“The days are long past” when merchants would tolerate weak support in exchange for attractive pricing, he added. “In order to really remain competitive in the marketplace, you’ve got to offer the full package.”

The competitive challenge in payments today increasingly extends upstream and downstream from the transaction itself. That creates an unusual consequence of payments innovation, where faster technology can make outdated operational infrastructure more visible.

“A faster rail doesn’t automatically create a faster payment business,” DiMaggio said.

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