A payment facilitator, or PayFac, is a provider that aggregates many merchants under its own master merchant account with an acquirer, onboarding each business as a sub merchant rather than giving it a dedicated account. Stripe, Square and PayPal are the best known examples.
Why it matters
The PayFac model is why onboarding takes minutes instead of weeks: the facilitator underwrites you lightly up front and monitors you afterwards instead. For high risk merchants that is a trap. The moment your chargebacks, vertical or content profile threatens the PayFac’s master account, offboarding is quick and often final, with funds held during the wind down. Most sudden account shutdown stories start with a high risk business running on a PayFac built for low risk volume. A dedicated high risk merchant account with a willing acquirer is slower to get and far harder to lose.