The news: Global Payments rolled out a retail point-of-sale (POS) system under its Genius platform targeting small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).

• Genius includes both a countertop and handheld POS. 
• Its retail capabilities include forecasting and automating inventory management, analyzing customer data, and offering customizable promotions for clients.

Features for businesses that require customer age verification and for those in the wellness/beauty space will drop in Q3 and Q4.

Genius history: Global Payments’ first Genius offering rolled out for restaurants in May. This represents Global Payments’ push to capture a larger share of the payment technology and software solutions market as an acquirer and merchant services provider.

Acquisition context: The ecommerce giant recently acquired Worldpay in a monster $24.25 billion three-way deal with FIS and private equity firm GTCR. With control over roughly $3.7 trillion in payment volume and a combined slate of more than 6 million clients served, Global Payments’ reach in the payments arena has been radically extended.

Global Payments can also tap Worldpay’s recent partnerships with Klarna and BVNK, which aim to reduce hurdles for completing transactions for customers and payments for merchants. Integrating BNPL financing and crypto payments at the POS broadens customer choice, which can help distinguish Global Payment merchants from other competing vendors.

Our take: Global Payments’ acquisition shook up the payments space with its sheer size, one of the largest redrawing of lines dividing issuers, acquirers, and processors. 

Despite that clout, as other merchant service providers also diversify their offerings through verticalized software, hardware, and partnership integrations, Global Payments’ Genius will enter a crowded POS space with its offerings nearly indistinguishable from Stripe’s, Square’s, or Toast’s hardware and software lineups.