How Microsoft Azure Will Transform Checkout.com Payments

Checkout.com has entered a multi-year technology collaboration with Microsoft that will see the payments provider migrate to Azure cloud infrastructure. The partnership aims to deliver faster and more secure digital payment processing for enterprise merchants whilst positioning both organisations for the emergence of agentic commerce.

Under the terms of the agreement, Checkout.com will adopt Microsoft Azure’s cloud infrastructure to accelerate digital payments performance for its enterprise merchant base. Customers including eBay, ASOS, Vinted, Pinterest and Klarna, already process transactions through the company’s platform.

The move centres on combining Azure’s cloud footprint with Checkout.com’s payments platform, which uses machine learning to optimise transaction acceptance in real time. The technology applies successful payment optimisations instantly across all merchants using the Intelligent Acceptance feature, creating network effects that improve acceptance rates and reduce processing costs.

Checkout.com adopts Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure

Checkout.com will leverage Azure’s machine learning capabilities alongside its existing AI-powered engine, which processes payment data and adjusts acceptance strategies based on transaction outcomes.

“We’re thrilled to collaborate with Microsoft and adopt Azure, bringing this mission-critical platform into our technology stack,” says Mariano Albera, Chief Technology Officer at Checkout.com. “The Azure platform has leading machine learning capabilities – and Microsoft has long been a pioneer of embedding trust into every layer of cloud innovation so that organisations can build, run and scale critical workloads with absolute confidence.”

Microsoft operates over 200 data centres organised into regions and linked by its network infrastructure. The Azure platform offers Hardware Security Modules for payment processing through Azure Payment HSM, a service delivered using Thales payShield 10K payment HSMs that meet Payment Card Industry requirements for security and compliance.

Azure Payment HSM is certified across PCI DSS, PCI 3DS and PCI PIN standards and offers HSMs certified to FIPS 140-2 Level 3 and PCI HSM v3. The service provides cryptographic key operations for real-time payment transactions and enables use cases including payment processing for card and mobile payment authorisation, 3D-Secure authentication, payment credential issuing and sensitive data protection for point-to-point encryption.

Financial institutions using Azure for payments infrastructure can reduce compliance burden by leveraging Azure’s PCI PIN Attestation of Compliance, which addresses Azure’s portion of responsibility for each PCI PIN requirement. The platform offers single-tenant HSMs that give customers administrative control and direct access to their payment security infrastructure.

“Our combined commitment to relentless innovation sets merchants up for success, enabling them to thrive,” Mariano adds. “And beyond the here and now – enabling them to explore and embrace the agentic commerce models where AI agents search and shop on behalf of consumers,” he says.

Azure infrastructure supports payment processing at scale

Azure provides confidential computing solutions for isolating data during cloud processing, which has applications in anti-money laundering, fraud prevention, secure payment processing and credit risk assessment. The platform uses encryption and authentication strategies alongside hardware-based security through dedicated HSMs.

Microsoft invests over US$1bn in security research and development and monitors operations across its physical data centres and cloud infrastructure. The company maintains PCI DSS validation at Service Provider Level 1, the designation for organisations processing more than six million transactions annually.

Azure offers infrastructure that financial services organisations use to meet regulatory compliance requirements. The platform provides over 100 compliance offerings and supports data residency requirements, including the EU Data Boundary for commercial and public sector customers in the European Union.

The infrastructure enables financial services companies to provision resources through infrastructure-as-code practices using tools like Terraform, which organisations including Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Börse Group and TMX Group use for Azure deployments.

“The payments industry is a constant source of AI-powered innovation and by collaborating and co-innovating with Microsoft, Checkout.com will be able to further enhance payment performance for merchants around the world,” says Tyler Pichach, Global Head of Payments at Microsoft Financial Services. “We are proud to be working with a successful, high growth UK-born fintech to scale even faster, across the globe.”