Payment processing is full of companies where you never talk to the same person twice. We built Electronic Merchant Services (EMS Payments) to be the opposite of that. We’re a family-owned business, we’ve been doing this since 2001, and when you call, a person who knows your account picks up.
Chosen once. Trusted for years.
That’s the whole idea. Some of our merchants and agents have been with us for more than ten years, and a few who left for a cheaper rate came back. We’d rather earn that than win a rate war.
Julie Franke runs EMS. She is an ETA Certified Payments Professional (CPP), the payment industry’s certification for people who actually know the rules behind the rates, and her specialty is the accounts other processors turn away: high-risk and high-ticket businesses.
Julie has been part of EMS from its earliest days. When the company was brand new she was setting appointments and making calls. From 2009 to 2015 she ran customer service and administration, which means she spent six years hearing exactly what frustrates business owners about payment processing before she ever ran the company. In 2015 she took over running EMS, and she’s been the one answering the hard questions ever since.
If you’ve seen her on Instagram or TikTok explaining chargebacks or telling processor horror stories, that’s not a persona. That’s just Julie. She’ll tell you straight, including when the honest answer is that we’re not the right fit.
Julie’s line you’ll hear a lot: Most businesses don’t have a payment problem. They have a setup problem.
Electronic Merchant Services was founded in 2001 by Sean Franke. From the start it was a family effort: Sean built the business while Julie set appointments, worked the phones, and sat in on industry conferences. No venture capital, no call center, just a couple building a client list one business at a time.
Over 25 years, EMS grew into something specific on purpose: the processor businesses come to after a big platform freezes their funds or turns them down. We got good at the hard approvals because we kept saying yes to conversations other processors wouldn’t have. Today EMS serves businesses across the country from our offices in Eagle, Idaho and Ontario, California, with a team of agents who work the same way we do.
Julie posts about payments, chargebacks, and processor horror stories on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. If you’re not ready to apply, follow along. When you are ready, the pre-application is free and there’s no application fee.
