Search

Online businesses increasingly rely on third-party digital payment providers to process customer payments, authenticate transactions, manage settlement, handle disputes, and enable scalable digital commerce. This reliance is often treated as a technical or operational arrangement rather than as a strategic dependency embedded in the firm’s revenue architecture. Yet payment dependence can shape how firms access transaction data, control customer experience, manage cash flow, and respond to disruptions.The central problem addressed in this article is that digital payment providers simultaneously enable and constrain online business ecosystems. They make commerce faster, more secure, and more scalable, but they also introduce external control points into the customer journey and revenue process. When these control points are poorly governed, firms may experience reduced transaction visibility, checkout friction, settlement uncertainty, and exposure to provider decisions.This article proposes the Digital Payment Dependence Model as an original conceptual framework for understanding how dependence on external payment infrastructures creates three interconnected strategic risks. These are loss of transaction control, customer friction at checkout, and revenue vulnerability. The model explains how these risks reinforce one another and why payment dependence should be treated as a managerial concern rather than a back-office technology issue.The proposed model contributes to digital business and payment systems research by reframing payment infrastructure as a strategic dependency within online business ecosystems. It shows that payment governance is not limited to transaction fees or technical uptime, but extends to control, experience design, and revenue continuity. The article concludes that managers should govern payment systems as strategic assets whose failure, concentration, or misalignment can directly threaten business resilience.