Unless I'm misunderstanding, I think you might have gotten sides mixed up?

Issuing side (the side that "issues" the cards) is usually the one that people describe as "all of the value", while acquiring (the side that "acquires" merchants) usually is that one that needs to bring substantial volumes to market.

For context to anyone not familiar with payments, about 60-70% of the card revenue in a transaction goes to the customer's / issuing side because they are the side that assumes credit risk for the consumer. The merchant's / acquiring side has significantly tighter margins and usually needs substantial volume before it can become an interesting business. One way that entrants on the merchant side of the stack monetize is by bundling value-add software.

E.g. Stripe does this with Billing (+.7%) and Connect (+.25%).

Fwiw I agree that most people will find this tech extremely un-fun. But I'm a "payments rail guy" in the way that others might be "train guys". My inner child lights up at the thought of payment rails. My Substack, Vivid Leaves, is basically a bunch of essays about historical payment systems - some we worked with in Kenya, and others I studied from the USSR. I wrote all this before I had any idea I'd be starting a payments company: https://agree.substack.com

We know it's going to be a schlep, and we're going to have a blast schlepping through it.

* vocab fyis for anyone reading this not familiar with payments.