Recognized companies include Bank of America, Elavon, JPMorgan Chase, PNC, REPAY, and Worldpay
TSG (The Strawhecker Group), a globally recognized analytics, intelligence, and solutions-focused firm serving the payments ecosystem, today announced the recipients of its 2026 Real Transaction Metrics Awards. These awards highlight payment gateways that consistently deliver excellence across performance areas that matter most to merchants and their customers.
Using its Global Experience Monitoring (GEM) platform, TSG evaluates gateway performance based on real transaction activity, capturing payments, uptime, and latency signals from more than 35 locations across North America, South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. More than 20 global payment providers were evaluated to determine this year’s award recipients.
“As competition intensifies, leading payment gateways are distinguishing themselves through focus on reliability, scalability, and performance,” said Mike Strawhecker, President of TSG. “We’re excited to recognize the gateways who delivered standout results in 2025.”
GEM empowers payments companies to protect their brand reputation, elevate end‑user experiences, mitigate revenue risk, and resolve issues proactively through comprehensive global monitoring, explicitly designed for the unique requirements of payments infrastructure.
Real Transaction Metrics Awards
Best Performing Gateway
The Best Performing Gateway award is based on the proprietary GEM Index, a comprehensive scorecard evaluating six performance dimensions: minute outages, gateway access, gateway reliability, transaction speed, transaction success rate, and authorization rate.
Winner: Elavon (Fusebox)
Runners-Up: Bank of America Gateway / Worldpay (Express)
Best Transaction Speed
GEM measures the end‑to‑end authorization time for Visa and Mastercard transactions, reflecting the consumer experience at checkout.
Winner: Elavon (Fusebox)
Runners-Up: JPMorgan Chase (United Payment Gateway) / Worldpay (Express)
Highest Authorization Rate
This metric reflects the percentage of authorization failures attributable to the gateway (not the issuer, network, or cardholder), highlighting platforms that maximize merchant approval performance.
Winner: PNC
Runners-Up: Bank of America Gateway / Elavon (Fusebox)
Best Gateway Reliability (North America)
Reliability is measured through continuous monitoring across locations in North America. A minute outage is recorded when at least 25% of checks fail simultaneously.
Winner: Bank of America Gateway
Runner-Up: Bank of America (HPS Gateway)
Best Gateway Reliability (Global)
Reliability is measured through continuous monitoring across locations in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia Pacific. A minute outage is recorded when at least 50% of checks fail simultaneously.
Winner: Worldpay (Access)
Runners-Up: Bank of America (HPS Gateway) / Worldpay (Worldwide Payment Gateway)
Best Gateway Uptime
This award recognizes the gateway with the highest overall availability based on uptime performance checks from more than 35 global locations.
Winner: REPAY
Runners-Up: Elavon (Fusebox) / PNC
Payments companies that leverage GEM have seen customer retention improve by 8% or more. To learn how TSG can benchmark or improve your gateway’s performance, please contact us online or call 1-833-690-1301. Those not currently subscribed may sign up for TSG Portal and start a GEM trial to experience the platform. For media inquiries, please email mediarelations@tsgpayments.com.
Companies and/or products considered for any TSG awards may or may not include clients of TSG and does not necessarily represent all companies or products in the market. This analysis is based upon information we consider reliable, but its accuracy and completeness cannot be guaranteed. Information provided is not all inclusive. All information listed is as available based on 2025 reporting. TSG is not and/or may not be endorsed, sponsored by, or in any other way affiliated with the companies or their logos illustrated. The trademarks shown are registered and their own. This document has not been prepared by any entity displayed.