New Vontier Research: Payment Friction Is Costing Convenience Retailers

RALEIGH, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 19, 2026--

Vontier (NYSE: VNT) today released new national research, surveying over 600 U.S. convenience store operators and fuel retailers, highlighting a widening performance gap between operators running a unified payment stack and those managing fragmented, multi‑solution ecosystems.

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As the forecourt becomes a critical battleground for customer loyalty, Vontier's research reveals that payment architecture is now a direct lever for speed of new feature deployment and growth – not just a back-office concern.

Unified Operators Are Pulling Ahead

The data is clear. Operators running more unified payment ecosystems are:

Improving the customer experience was the most common motivation for investing in a unified payment architecture – cited by almost half (49%) of retailers – with improved system reliability and cost/time reduction in operations reported as the second and third most popular motivations.

The Opportunity Is Significant

Today, 56% of retailers rely on multiple payment processors and 68% operate two or more payment systems across devices. As a result, adding a new solution or update can require managing four to five separate vendor certifications (29% of respondents).

The result: 68% of fuel retailers take at least six months to deploy new payment or loyalty capabilities, and those with multiple providers wait even longer (73%). Nearly two-thirds (64%) reported they were very to extremely confident that consolidating vendors and technologies would meaningfully reduce certification cycles and related costs.

For operators running loyalty programs – one of the most powerful drivers of repeat visits and basket size – the cost of delay is especially high. Retailers with loyalty schemes are nearly three times more likely to report certification-related launch delays (32% vs. 12%).

"Convenience retail is built on delivering elevated consumer experiences and unified payment systems can support these expectations by driving faster feature rollouts, smoother upgrades and stronger customer engagement," said Mark Morelli, President and CEO of Vontier. "When certification cycles stretch into months, operators aren't just delayed – they're missing opportunities to capture visits, build loyalty and grow revenue. Reducing fragmentation in the environment is how retailers get back to moving at the pace their customers expect."

Vontier: Built to Eliminate Complexity at Every Touchpoint

Vontier's convenience retail and mobility technologies, notably Invenco’s payment and forecourt solutions, are purpose-built to solve these challenges. By unifying payments, streamlining certification pathways and connecting loyalty across consumer touchpoints, operators are able to:

With 42% of retailers citing easier customer enrollment as a top loyalty driver for consolidation, Vontier's integrated approach and Invenco’s suite of solutions address the initiatives operators are most eager to accelerate.

About Vontier

Vontier (NYSE: VNT) is a global industrial technology company uniting productivity, automation and multi-energy technologies to meet the needs of a rapidly evolving, more connected mobility ecosystem. Leveraging leading market positions, decades of domain expertise and unparalleled portfolio breadth, Vontier powers the way the world moves – delivering smart, safe and sustainable solutions to our customers and the planet. Vontier has a culture of continuous improvement and innovation worldwide. Additional information about Vontier is available on the Company’s website at www.vontier.com.

Fragmentation is a hidden tax, Vontier research finds. Retailers with unified payment stacks see smoother upgrades, lower staff burdens and significantly faster rollout cycles for new loyalty and payment features.

PROVO, Utah (AP) — Lawyers for the man accused of killing Charlie Kirk were in court Tuesday, making their case to bar reporters and the public from parts of a key upcoming hearing and seal some evidence after the judge rejected their request to ban news cameras from the courtroom.

Tyler Robinson's defense has argued that broadcasts of the proceedings create a media frenzy that often misrepresent him and could bias potential jurors. They hope to restrict access to parts of his preliminary hearing, scheduled for July 6-10, when prosecutors must show they have enough evidence to warrant a trial.

That hearing will mark the most significant presentation of evidence to date in a case that has focused largely on public access in its first eight months.

The defense began Tuesday by urging the judge to punish prosecutors for comments that one of them, Christopher Ballard, made outside of court. Richard Novak, an attorney for Robinson, said Ballard essentially went on a “media tour” in which he made “expressions of opinion as to Mr. Robinson’s guilt.”

Prosecutors responded that Ballard had a right to speak to news outlets to correct misinformation about an inconclusive, preliminary finding by ballistics experts, which led to speculation about Robinson’s possible exoneration. “Here he was representing the true nature of that report" and did not make a statement of opinion about guilt, Deputy Utah County Attorney Ryan McBride said.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty if Robinson, 23, is convicted. He is charged with crimes including aggravated murder in the Sept. 10 assassination of the conservative activist on the Utah Valley University campus. Robinson has not yet entered a plea.

Prior to his death, Kirk and the conservative youth movement he founded, Turning Point USA, emerged as a major force in U.S. politics and helped President Donald Trump win a second term.

As public attention has swirled, state District Judge Tony Graf has taken steps to protect Robinson’s rights in court, but he declined earlier this month to bar cameras.

During the preliminary hearing, prosecutors say they plan to introduce forensic analyses, surveillance video, recordings of witness statements, autopsy findings and alleged messages from Robinson admitting to the crime.

Defense attorneys have asked the judge to seal dozens of those exhibits to “prevent infecting the potential jury pool,” according to a court document filed Monday.

Prosecutors argue that the preliminary hearing should remain open, but they agree that media should be restricted from viewing or copying some exhibits that could be used in a future trial.

Prosecutors have said Robinson left a note for his romantic partner hidden under a keyboard that said, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.” They have also said he wrote in a text message about Kirk: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”

Authorities have said DNA consistent with Robinson’s was found on the trigger of the rifle used to kill Kirk, the fired cartridge casing, two unfired cartridges and a towel used to wrap the rifle.

Deputy Utah County Attorney Chad Grunander said in court documents that some evidence prosecutors plan to present in July is “reliable hearsay,” or statements made outside of court that are considered highly trustworthy. Such statements are typically allowed in preliminary hearings but not at trial, where standards are stricter.

Robinson’s attorneys worry the statements will spread widely after the preliminary hearing, harm their client and then not be admissible at a trial.

Prosecutors disagree, saying in a court filing, “There is nothing to suggest that the substance of the evidence is inadmissible.”

FILE - An attendee holds a poster of Charlie Kirk during a Turning Point USA rally, Sept. 30, 2025, in Logan, Utah. (AP Photo/Alex Goodlett, File)