Atlanta and Sunnyvale, Calif., February 8, 2021 – Global Payments Inc. and Google today announced an expansive multi-year partnership to deliver innovative cloud-based products and capabilities, enabling best-in-class digital merchant customer experiences worldwide. As part of the partnership, Global Payments will migrate its merchant acquiring technology to Google Cloud, and will provide merchant acquiring services to Google to extend its global market reach.  In addition, Global Payments and Google Cloud will be launching a series of strategic go-to-market and co-sell activities together.   

Global Payments and Google will collaborate on product development and innovation to further enhance and differentiate the suite of cloud-based solutions available to merchant customers on Google Cloud. This builds on Global Payments’ competitive advantages as a leading payments technology company globally. As an example of this co-innovation work together, Google’s public APIs (Google Workspace, Google My Business, Google Ads) and other  technologies will be integrated with Global Payments’ leading software and payments ecosystem, delivering the full spectrum of solutions that merchants need to run and grow their businesses.  

Global Payments’ merchant customers will be able to digitally access a robust value stack of software-as-a-service offerings, including data and analytics, omnichannel ordering, payments, collaboration suite, email marketing, online presence and reputation management, loyalty, gift card, point-of-sale, capital access and payroll solutions.  These products will be delivered through Global Payments’ secure cloud-native operating environment, which offers a simple, secure user experience integrated with Google’s technology. Together, this suite of capabilities will aid merchants’ ability to run their businesses, grow and retain long-term customer relationships.

Global Payments will also migrate much of its merchant acquiring technology workload to Google Cloud, significantly streamlining its operating environment to enhance performance and drive significant cost efficiencies.  By moving its acquiring technology to Google Cloud, Global Payments will be able to maintain the highest level of scalability, reliability, and security, while increasing its speed of innovation and ability to seamlessly deploy transaction services on-demand anywhere in the world.  

As part of the agreement, Global Payments will become a worldwide merchant acquiring provider to Google. Google will leverage Global Payments’ Unified Commerce Platform for acceptance technology to meet its diverse payments needs.

This partnership also creates strategic co-selling opportunities worldwide for both companies.  Google Cloud is a leading infrastructure, platform and industry solutions provider, helping businesses solve their most critical problems across 150 countries. Global Payments provides payments software and technology solutions to roughly 3.5 million merchant locations across 60 countries physically and more than 100 virtually. By tapping into both companies’ customer bases, the joint go-to-market efforts will drive significant referral and new merchant customer acquisition opportunities on an omnichannel basis, as well as connect consumers with merchants via search in new and innovative ways, driving commerce and growth.  

“We are delighted to embark on this transformational journey with Google to further enhance our industry leading merchant solutions ecosystem with additional scale, reach and speed of market to seamlessly deliver new innovative, digital technologies to customers worldwide,” said Jeff Sloan, Chief Executive Officer, Global Payments. “This unique partnership will accelerate our technology enabled, software driven strategy and further enhance our position as the partner of choice for all manner of merchants worldwide.”

“As digital commerce evolves, Global Payments is building its computing and merchant solutions capabilities on Google Cloud,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “This partnership will help merchants run and grow their businesses globally with speed, scale, and innovation. Together, we’re excited to support customers in turning their business and technology aspirations into reality.”