Paze expands partnerships with major merchants

Paze, an online checkout service from Early Warning Services LLC, is expected to expand its partnerships in the coming year, according to Eric Hoffman, chief partnerships officer at EWS.

Hoffman stated that 2025 was a significant year for building partnerships, and 2026 will see the results of these efforts in the form of consumer transactions with large national merchants.

The partnerships include Nuvei Corp., Payfinia, and Fiserv Inc., which will incorporate Paze as an e-commerce checkout option for their merchants.

Xsolla, a videogame-commerce company, has also added Paze as an online checkout option, further broadening its reach.

Hoffman noted that the Fiserv partnership includes the issuer side, enabling Fiserv to cross-sell Paze acceptance to its financial-institution clients.

Paze, which was preloaded with 150 million credit and debit cards and billing addresses from EWS’s seven bank owners, is moving closer to 200 million cards, according to Hoffman.

Hoffman is tapping lessons EWS learned from Zelle, its peer-to-peer payments service, to drive growth for Paze, acknowledging that changing consumer behavior takes time.

As part of its plan, EWS is using marketing efforts, such as the recent jersey patch sponsorship of the Atlanta Hawks, to create awareness in the payments ecosystem.

EWS is also refining Paze as its usage rises, with a focus on conversion-rate improvement and examining potential friction points that might tempt a user to abandon a Paze transaction.

Hoffman says that will help create awareness in the payments ecosystem, especially as many financial-services companies operate out of Atlanta. Hoffman is no stranger to these kinds of efforts. He helped lead Apple Inc.’s rollout of merchant acceptance for its Apple Pay service.