Adyen Lands Payments Deal For Subway In US, Canada

Adyen will help process payments for quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain Subway in the U.S. and Canada, the firms announced on Tuesday (Jan. 28), Bloomberg reported.

The Dutch-based payment company has already begun processing some payments, and will eventually help Subway in more than 20,000 stores, according to Adyen Chief Operating Officer Kamran Zaki. The company offers services both online and in stores, processing merchant payments in numerous countries and currencies.

Adyen is attempting to carve out a niche in the payments industry, as it recently signed on to serve as payment processor for eBay over longtime partner PayPal, and will soon be doing so for the mobile app transactions of McDonald’s. The company is up against competitors like San Francisco-based Stripe.

Adyen had an initial public offering (IPO) in June 2018, and since then has increased its shares by threefold. Trends in global marketing where companies are looking to facilitate customer payments more have led to more demand for services like Adyen’s.

Other customers include Uber, EasyJet and Birchbox, the company website states. Adyen’s customers also include Netflix and Airbnb.

Subway Chief Information Officer Mike Macrie said partnering with Adyen would allow the QSR to stay on top of the latest digital payment trends and keep things convenient for customers.

The company launched a new payment service last February, an open banking service that will provide an alternative to card-based payments. Taking advantage of Europe’s Payment Service Directive (PSD2) requirements, Adyen’s new service proposed to let third parties initiate payments on customers’ behalf. The service would have access to almost all consumer accounts in the U.K.

Open banking means payments are authenticated between consumers and their banks, letting merchants avoid chargebacks due to fraud or situations where the payments couldn’t be processed.

Like other forms of online payment, Adyen’s service lets consumers select a method of payment and then be redirected to their bank’s page to confirm the payment. After verification, the payment is sent directly from the consumer.