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Echelon Payment Solutions Group may be a new name in the acquiring industry, but its roots extend to 2006. Once affiliated with EVO Payments and known then as EVO Platinum Services Group (EPSG), Echelon is its own entity offering payment services and providing support for its sales partners.
Melville, N.Y.-based Echelon works with more than 4,000 sales partners and processes more than $7.5 billion in volume annually. Cofounders and cochairmen of the board are Brett Sturm and Richard Ross. Echelon’s Web site lists it as a registered independent sales organization of Merrick Bank, Deutsche Bank, and Woodforest National Bank
“What separates us is the shared-services model with our alliance partners,” Brent Rose, Echelon’s chief executive, tells Digital Transactions News. That means Echelon can tackle as much or as little of the back end, operational functions as a sales partner might choose, ranging from BIN registration to marketing, risk and compliance management, and other aspects, he says. “We can help them get into other financial institutions, other partnerships, and other groups. It’s redistribution of our sales channel from the typical.”
Rose says Echelon houses its service staff internally with a full compliance team and risk underwriting. It can also help move a merchant portfolio to another platform, assuming there is portability.
Echelon’s merchant mix is broad, though it traditionally has had a mix of low to medium risk merchants. It has a concentration of merchants in the New York City metro area, Rose says, and a notable cache of hotel, restaurant, and petroleum clients. One large sporting goods retailer processed $75 million annually in e-commerce with Echelon, he says.
Echelon has generated as much revenue in the first five months of 2024 as it did in all of 2023, it says. Average residual pay outs increased by 24% compared to 2023, and approval rates reached 93%. Sales partners can access benefits such as lifetime residuals and flexible 1099 and W2 options, also.
