I don't see the 'balance' issue as an inherent part of batched payments. Your hypothesis makes far more sense. It's like a customer with a shopping cart of it

I don't see the 'balance' issue as an inherent part of batched payments. Your hypothesis makes far more sense. It's like a customer with a shopping cart of items from different vendors. The additional complication of some of those vendors also turning around to support others is interesting... That part I could see needing to be cut or at least discussed with legal. However if /that/ were the issue they could do much better PR by being upfront and public about it.