Microsoft & Checkout.com join forces to boost digital payments

Microsoft and Checkout.com have formed a technology partnership aimed at improving enterprise payments performance and enhancing trust in the digital economy.

The collaboration will see Checkout.com adopting Microsoft Azure's global cloud infrastructure, a move intended to provide enterprise merchants with faster, more secure, and scalable digital payments. As part of this multi-year agreement, both companies aim to support their shared customers and enable businesses to adapt to emerging models of agentic commerce, where AI agents act on behalf of consumers.

Cloud platform adoption

By integrating its digital payments platform with Microsoft Azure, Checkout.com expects to increase transaction speed and reliability for customers around the world. This strengthened infrastructure is positioned to support notable brands already served by Checkout.com, including eBay, ASOS, Vinted, Pinterest, and Klarna.

According to Checkout.com, its AI-powered engine delivers continual real-time payment optimisation. The company's Intelligent Acceptance feature is designed so that every successful optimisation benefits all merchants on the platform, targeting improved acceptance rates, reduced costs, and new revenue opportunities for enterprise clients.

Mariano Albera, Chief Technology Officer at Checkout.com, explained the reasoning behind the strategic shift to Azure and highlighted the expected benefits for their customers.

"We're thrilled to collaborate with Microsoft and adopt Azure, bringing this mission-critical platform into our technology stack. The Azure platform has leading machine learning capabilities - and Microsoft has long been a pioneer of embedding trust into every layer of cloud innovation so that organizations can build, run and scale critical workloads with absolute confidence. Our combined commitment to relentless innovation sets merchants up for success, enabling them to thrive. And beyond the here and now - enabling them to explore and embrace the agentic commerce models where AI agents search and shop on behalf of consumers."

AI and innovation in payments

The payments sector has increasingly been a proving ground for artificial intelligence-driven solutions. By combining cloud infrastructure with AI, the partnership is expected to deliver further enhancements to transaction performance and digital payment experiences for both merchants and consumers.

Tyler Pichach, Global Head of Payments for Microsoft Financial Services, commented on the significance of the partnership for both companies and the industry at large.

"The payments industry is a constant source of AI-powered innovation and by collaborating and co-innovating with Microsoft, Checkout.com will be able to further enhance payment performance for merchants around the world. We are proud to be working with a successful, high growth UK-born fintech to scale even faster, across the globe."

This collaboration forms part of an ongoing trend of financial technology companies moving core systems onto the public cloud, seeking increased agility, resilience, and access to scalable computing power necessary for machine learning and data-driven enhancements.

Supporting global commerce

Checkout.com processes payments in over 145 currencies and offers digital payment solutions to thousands of enterprise merchants worldwide. With a presence in London and 19 offices globally, the company processes billions of transactions annually. The adoption of Azure's infrastructure is expected to support Checkout.com's continued growth and its efforts to serve a diverse set of organisations across sectors and geographies.

Both companies have cited a mutual ambition to embed trust at the core of current and future payments systems. This is particularly relevant as the digital economy moves toward models in which automation and AI play a larger role in purchasing and payments processes.

The agreement between Microsoft and Checkout.com focuses primarily on technology integration and platform stability, rather than creating new products. The partnership does, however, underscore the broader trend of collaboration between digital payments providers and cloud technology firms to bring advanced capabilities to enterprise customers.

The companies indicate that this partnership will assist merchants as they adapt to the growth of agentic commerce and contribute to the evolution of secure, efficient, and trustworthy digital payment experiences worldwide.