Two major financial tech groups are merging. What that means for Georgia.

“It makes the most sense to join forces and continue to expand our ability to educate and advocate,” Kelley said Friday from the Georgia World Congress Center, where ETA was hosting its annual conference, Transact. It’s the first merger during her six-year tenure, she said.

The merger comes as the payments industry is in a period of rapid innovation with the rise of artificial intelligence and stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency designed to be more stable by tying its value to an asset such as the U.S. dollar.

The industry also is facing increased state-level oversight following a scaling back of federal regulations under President Donald Trump.

“States are legislating on AI, for example,” Kelley said. “Whenever you have 50 different regulations, that’s much more challenging than when you have just a single standard to which you’re building and operating.”

ETA says it represents more than 500 companies across the payments ecosystem, including Apple, Visa, American Express and Mastercard, along with Atlanta-based companies such as Global Payments. ETA advocates for regulatory and legislative issues and provides business development and networking opportunities.

With the deal, ATPC Executive Director Jay Morgan joins ETA as an adviser. Morgan said in an announcement the integration of ATPC “is a natural next step for ETA to be an even stronger advocate for payments.”

Among its achievements, ATPC launched the Georgia Fintech Academy, which delivers curriculum across the University System of Georgia.

Georgia is a well-known payment processing hub, often called “Transaction Alley” because 70% of all debit, credit and digital payments are processed here.

In 2024, the payments industry employed almost 19,000 direct jobs in Georgia, and through a ripple effect, supported more than 70,000 jobs in the state, according to a January report PwC completed for ETA.

The payments industry in 2024 directly contributed $6 billion to Georgia’s gross domestic product, ranking it eighth in the nation, says the report. When adding spillover effects, such as supply-chain purchases and household spending, that number balloons to a nearly $13 billion contribution to Georgia’s GDP.

“Georgia has always been critically important to our industry,” Kelley said. Though ETA is based in the nation’s capital, Georgia is the only other state where it has dedicated staff resources, she said. “That’s no accident.”