Telos Payment Processing

Telos Payment Processing

Telos Payment Processing was founded in 2014 in Norman, Oklahoma by Wyatt Worden, who had previously sold his stake in a payment processing company and later served as Director of Development for an international nonprofit. The firm was designed from the start as a for-profit conduit for charitable giving, combining merchant services with a fixed profit-sharing model. Telos provides credit card processing to businesses of any size, matching or beating incumbent rates and supplying necessary equipment for new entrants. Its back-end partnerships with First Data, Elavon, Vantiv, TSYS, and Clearent give clients access to processors that together handle 85% of all global card transactions. The firm earns revenue from processing fees but commits to paying 50% of its profit — defined as fees received minus interchange costs assessed by card networks — directly to a nonprofit selected by each merchant. The firm operates nationally across the United States, serving merchants from local paint-and-design shops to broader retail businesses. Telos operates a lean, founder-driven structure with a publicly known office in Norman, Oklahoma. The firm does not disclose total merchant volume or headcount. On its website, the firm claims a 100% merchant satisfaction rating and emphasizes free switching, no service interruptions, and no cancellation fees. No adjacent investment vehicles, philanthropic foundations, or operating subsidiaries are disclosed. No significant operational events from the last 24 months have been publicly reported. The firm’s core differentiator is its pre-committed profit share rather than a post-hoc corporate giving program. The 50% profit donation is embedded in its pricing model, not dependent on discretionary decisions, which makes the charity commitment a fixed operational cost rather than a marketing pledge. This structure effectively turns payment processing into a recurring donation engine, a model rarely encountered among merchant acquirers.