rewrite this title Spreedly Unbundles Its Payment Vault – Finovate

Spreedly is launching a standalone payment vault, enabling merchants to securely store and manage payment credentials without adopting the company’s full payments orchestration platform.

The portable vault supports more than 100 payment providers, giving merchants greater flexibility to switch processors, build their own routing logic, and expand payment capabilities without migrating stored credentials.

By unbundling its vault, Spreedly is challenging the traditional processor lock-in model and increasing pressure on payment providers to offer more open, interoperable payments infrastructure.

Payments orchestration platform Spreedly launched a standalone payment vault that gives merchants the ability to securely store and control their own payment credentials without using Spreedly’s payments orchestration platform.

Unbundling the payment vault means a merchant can now use Spreedly’s vault separately from its other products to securely store payment credentials; continue using its existing payment processor, even if it is with Stripe, Adyen, or Worldpay; keep their existing payment routing logic; and have the option to decide whether to adopt Spreedly’s orchestration platform or build its own.

“The vault has become the control point in modern payments,” said Spreedly CEO Justin Benson. “More of what determines payment performance now lives in the credential itself, and providers are finally opening up to let merchants own it. Merchants want that control—the ability to run the providers they have today and change course tomorrow. An independent vault lets them start now and decide the rest as they grow. They shouldn’t have to commit to everything on day one.”

The standalone vault offers merchants a direct path to additional payment capabilities on the Spreedly platform without migrating payment credentials, PCI DSS Level 1 tokenization that keeps raw payment data out of merchant systems, and portable payment credentials that work across more than 100 payment providers with no processor lock-in. Additionally, Spreedly’s built-in network tokenization and account updater services help keep payment credentials current and improve authorization rates.

Spreedly’s stored credential transactions now account for 40% of its transaction volume. That figure, which is up from 34% in 2022, reflects merchants’ increasing demand for payment strategies built around portable credentials rather than a single payment processor.

Spreedly said that it is unbundling the payment vault because the value of where the payment sits has changed in five major ways:

The vault is no longer passive storage because the payment credential and who controls it have become a competitive advantage as network tokenization, account updater services, and stored-credential optimization increasingly determine authorization rates and payment performance.

Payment providers that used to control credentials are increasingly supporting merchant-controlled vaults and credential portability. This removes a long-standing barrier to adding or switching providers.

A growing number of merchants want to own the routing and decisioning layer that sits outside of their providers.

As AI agents begin initiating purchases, merchants in control of portable payment credentials will be best positioned to support them.

Keeping their payment vault independent helps merchants preserve optionality without being locked into a commitment.

“A vault shouldn’t lock you into anyone’s roadmap, including ours,” said Spreedly CTO Mike Rivers. “When credentials stay portable, a merchant can run a single provider per region today and add routing, orchestration, or new payment methods whenever they’re ready. Portability is what keeps the future open.”

The launch will likely intensify competition across the payments ecosystem. Traditionally, processors and gateways have strengthened customer retention by controlling merchants’ stored payment credentials, making it costly to switch providers. By offering a standalone, portable vault, Spreedly is challenging that model and encouraging merchants to treat payment credentials as infrastructure they own rather than an asset managed by a single payments provider. If the strategy gains traction, it could put pressure on processors, gateways, and orchestration platforms alike to make their own ecosystems more open and interoperable.

Spreedly was founded in 2007 to help merchants build their payments stack on a single platform. The North Carolina-based company’s payment orchestration stack processes over $50 billion in annual transaction volume on behalf of more than 400 customers across 100+ countries. Spreedly also offers fraud prevention, payment optimization tools, and more. Among the company’s clients are BMW, CLEAR, HBO Max, Hopper, Lemonade, Getty, Warner, The New York Times, and others.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

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