The Executive Interview Series provides readers with exclusive insights from movers and shakers in the payments industry. The payments industry is under continuous transformation. This series offers diverse perspectives on everything from strategy to payments technology and the industry’s future.
In this interview between Zack Levine, Head of Revenue for North America at Checkout.com, and TSG’s Morgan Murphy, Zack shares how the global payments leader is helping enterprise merchants turn transactions into strategic growth engines. Levine discusses the company’s full-stack approach to performance, the human expertise behind its merchant partnerships, and the innovations fueling its 40% global revenue growth in 2024. From AI-driven payment optimization to expanding into high-growth markets like Brazil and Canada, Levine discusses the future of digital commerce.
Bio: Zack Levine is the Head of Revenue for North America at Checkout.com, a leading global digital payments partner, powering brands like eBay, Klarna, and GE Healthcare. Originally joining Checkout.com in 2021 to lead the US sales team, Levine later took the reins as the company’s General Manager for Israel in 2024. Levine now leads Checkout.com’s commercial strategy and teams in North America as well as Israel, including sales, business development, account management, and solutions engineering. Before Checkout.com, Zack held senior roles at WeWork and McKinsey & Company. He received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s from Oxford University.
Q. Morgan M.
How do you define performance at Checkout.com?
A. Zack L.
When we talk about performance for our customers, that usually starts with payment acceptance. Digital businesses are losing revenue they shouldn’t be, often due to preventable issues like authorization failures, false declines, or outdated fraud rules.
Closing that acceptance gap is where Checkout.com comes in. We have built a payment network from the ground up, centered around performance and finding ways our customers can turn payments into major revenue drivers for their businesses. We want to lead the industry in acceptance rates, and we measure this obsessively, always striving to raise the bar for our merchants.
But performance for us is a lot more than just acceptance. It includes latency, uptime, integration depth, geographic reach, and exceptional customer support, and most importantly, bringing merchants proactive solutions.
Q. Morgan M.
What makes Checkout.com stand out from the competition?
A. Zack L.
From an architecture perspective, our entire payments stack was built together, from scratch, with enterprise merchants in mind. In an industry where most options are legacy platforms with fragmented solutions and API layers, it’s unique to have a provider fully control each aspect of the payment journey.
As a full-stack provider, we combine gateway, processing, and acquiring services, layering in added value with standalone tools for vaulting, authentication, fraud detection, funds management, payment optimization, and more. Our modular design lets merchants either adopt our complete end-to-end suite or select specific features tailored to their needs.
The power of our network also needs to be called out. Processing billions of transactions each year, we apply AI, machine learning, and deep issuer insights to push approval rates higher, cut costs, and unlock revenue. And because every Checkout.com product runs on our unified network, individual optimizations don’t just boost one business but lift performance for all.
Finally, we recognize there is no substitute for human expertise in payments. That’s why we invest so heavily in our people and work hand-in-hand with our merchants to solve challenges and drive growth for their businesses.
Q. Morgan M.
In 2024, Checkout.com achieved some significant milestones, including 40% global revenue growth year-over-year. Looking back, what key decisions or strategic shifts do you believe drove that success?
A. Zack L.
Our performance in 2024 was built on years of hard work and focused execution. In the past year alone, over 300 new merchants, including Ticketmaster, Bumble, Trip.com, and Heineken, started processing with Checkout.com. These results can also be attributed to growing partnerships with merchants like Netflix, Remitly, and Papa Johns, partners that started working with us before 2024, but have trusted us with more of their business.
We are hyper-focused on bringing best-in-class engagement to the payments industry and ensuring that we continue to distance ourselves from the pack in terms of service and what it means to build long-term partnerships.
These results are also driven by collaborative efforts across the entire business. From Customer Success and Merchant Care to Product and Solutions Engineering, together we help merchants unlock greater value from their digital payments strategies.
Q. Morgan M.
Checkout.com recently opened an office in San Francisco. Tell us more about your North American growth.
A. Zack L.
Over the last few years, Checkout.com has significantly grown its footprint in North America. In 2024, we were the company’s fastest-growing region, with 80% year-over-year revenue growth, and we expect this growth to continue.
We are proud to serve many blue-chip brands and have built established partnerships across the ecosystem. With amazing teams across New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta, we expect to go from strength to strength as we grow our headcount across the continent.
North America is seeing a major shift in how people spend and we are ready to help enterprise merchants capitalize. Through one integration point, merchants access our full suite of distinctive online pay-in and payout capabilities across cards, bank rails, wallets, and popular methods like ACH, PayPal and Venmo. We have supplemented this with cutting-edge features like Pinless Debit, RTP, and fraud share scoring with issuers.
Finally, with the launch of local acquiring in Canada, we are starting a new chapter in our North American growth story. It is an exciting time to be at Checkout.com.
Q. Morgan M.
Looking at your product roadmap, what projects are you most excited about?
A. Zack L.
I’m very excited to see Brazil on our roadmap, as it’s a fast-moving, high-potential market for us that many of our merchants have asked us about. The team is currently gearing up to launch direct acquiring with Visa, Mastercard, and PIX later this year.
Closer to home, we’ve seen great adoption from US merchants looking to improve their checkout experiences and reduce cart abandonment with flexible payment options like PayPal, Venmo, ACH, and PINless Debit. We’ve also seen great momentum for bank and card payouts, giving merchants more ways to move money and meet customer expectations at speed.
Behind the scenes, we will double down on our investment in R&D, machine learning, and AI to enable greater payment performance. Just 15 months after launching ‘Intelligent Acceptance’ (our AI engine that helps improve acceptance rates) it surpassed $10 billion in generated revenue for merchants, and we’re now adding another billion every 30 days.
Q. Morgan M.
Checkout.com recently published its 2025 Digital Economy Report and inaugural Trust Index. What are some of the key takeaways from this report?
A. Zack L.
Based on insights from 18,000 consumers across 16 countries, Checkout.com’s 2025 Digital Economy Report reveals that trust in payments, AI, and emerging tech is shaping online behavior more than ever.
66% of consumers say the checkout experience is critical to trust, while 4 in 10 will abandon a purchase if the security doesn’t feel right, and 42% won’t return after a failed payment. Alarmingly, nearly 70% don’t feel safe storing card details online, making security perceptions the top driver of lost trust. There are also some great insights from our partners at GE Healthcare, Visa, the Merchant Risk Council, and many more experts at the heart of the digital economy.
Alongside the report, we also launched our very first Trust Index, an interactive tool ranking countries by how much consumers trust the digital world based on security, transparency, and ease of use. You can see how trust in things like blockchain, biometrics, and digital payments varies around the world. Interestingly, China and the Middle East are leading the trust rankings, while Europe and North America are more skeptical about blockchain and AI.
Q. Morgan M.
Why is trust so important in digital payments and for e-commerce businesses?
A. Zack L.
In traditional commerce, trust is often rooted in tangible experiences via physical stores, direct interactions, and immediate access to goods. You see the product, meet the merchant, and walk away with your purchase in hand. That visibility builds confidence. If something goes wrong, you know where to return. The trust is personal.
In ecommerce, that physical certainty disappears. Each transaction involves handing over personal data, relying on invisible systems, and hoping everything works as expected. There’s no shopkeeper to reassure you. That makes trust not just a benefit, but the foundation of digital commerce.
Merchants must recognize trust as a measurable, strategic asset that directly impacts conversion, retention, and competitive advantage. When a consumer decides to share personal data, commit to a transaction, or interact with AI chatbots, trust can be won and lost. That means companies need to invest in better protection, smarter tech, and real transparency.
Q. Morgan M.
Looking ahead, what trend or emerging technology in the payment space are you most excited about, and where do you see the biggest opportunity for innovation?
A. Zack L.
I strongly believe that agentic commerce will be the most disruptive force in payments yet. AI is not just helping shoppers find products but now completing the whole transaction. From discovery to checkout, digital assistants are doing the work, changing where and how payments happen.
For merchants, this is a chance to engage consumers at the exact moment they’re ready to buy. It’s not just a new payment method; it’s a new moment of intent. This might sound like something from the future, but it’s already starting to take shape with Mastercard’s Agent Pay and Visa’s Intelligent Commerce leading the charge. We’re extremely proud to be partnering with both companies to bring the latest in payment innovation to merchants. More announcements to come on this very soon!