Adyen

Payment processing seemed solved. Visa and MasterCard owned every transaction. Merchants paid two to 3% interchange, plus processing fees. But the infrastructure had a leak. Every time a customer swiped a card, data moved through multiple middlemen. Bank, processor, gateway, acquiring bank. Each took a cut. The merchant never knew the true cost. Adien, founded in 1999 by Ryan Jacobs and Peter van der Waller, said the merchant should know everything. Adien built the entire stack. They didn't just process payments. They owned the acquiring. They owned the gateway. They owned the risk. A merchant paying Adien paid a single all-in fee. No surprise middlemen. No hidden interchange.