Payload, an embedded payments platform processing nearly $500 million per month, has secured a strategic investment led by Fifth Third Bank, marking the company’s first significant outside capital since its founding in late 2019. The investment, announced August 19, signals Fifth Third’s confidence in Payload’s ability to expand embedded payments across industries beyond real estate, where the platform has become a leading processor of earnest money deposits in the United States and Canada.
Payload was founded by Ryan Rybolt and Ian Halpern, both with deep payments experience—Rybolt began his career in fintech at Fifth Third before founding Infintech in 2004, while Halpern successfully launched and exited PlacePay, which served the multifamily and co-working sector. The company processed its first payment in January 2020 and has grown at a consistent annual revenue growth rate exceeding 100 percent.
The investment will fund expansion of Payload’s engineering and go-to-market teams, accelerate rollout of next-generation payment rail integrations, and deepen the platform’s reach across software ecosystems and new industry verticals. Fifth Third will also serve as a strategic partner as Payload expands relationships with financial institutions, enterprise platforms, and software companies across North America.
Payload’s platform is built from the ground up to enable businesses and software platforms to accept, process, and manage payments natively within their products and workflows. The company has expanded beyond real estate into legal payments, professional services, property management, homebuilding, and franchises. According to the company, developers can move from their first API call to processing live payments in hours, with enterprise-grade security, real-time event handling, and the flexibility to create custom payment experiences built into the architecture.
Fifth Third’s commercial payments division, which includes its Newline embedded payments platform, generated more than $1 billion in fee revenue in 2025. Newline is the fastest-growing segment in that business and expects to process more than $25 trillion in payment volume in 2026, compared with $9 trillion in 2016. Bridgit Chayt, head of commercial payments and treasury management at Fifth Third, said in the announcement that Payload “has built something rare in the payments space: a platform that is both technically sophisticated and deeply aligned with real business needs.”
The embedded payments market is experiencing rapid growth as businesses seek faster, more integrated ways to move money. The global embedded payments market is projected to grow 134 percent between the end of 2024 and 2028, according to Juniper Research. A 2026 KPMG survey found that 58 percent of banks named embedded finance a priority for the year, with 75 percent identifying open banking—the data-sharing technology that supports embedded payments—as a priority. Additionally, 40 percent of small and midsize merchants said they planned to switch from banks to paytech providers within 12 months, citing faster onboarding and more integrated service delivery.
Enrico Camerinelli, strategic advisor at Datos Insights, told American Banker that banks ignoring the embedded finance shift won’t stay relevant. “Within two or three years, banks without scalable modern tech and industry-focused financial services will become invisible,” he said. The investment reflects Fifth Third’s bet that the next era of payments will be faster, more intelligent, and increasingly embedded within the software businesses already use.
Sources
- Payload — official press release announcing Fifth Third investment, company founding details, payment volume metrics, and use of proceeds
- American Banker — Fifth Third’s Newline division fee revenue, payment volume projections, industry context, and expert commentary from Enrico Camerinelli
- PYMNTS — announcement details, Payload’s processing volume, and industry expansion plans
