How can you streamline payment systems?

Simplicity is better. As long as payment is required, it's a matter of providing a menu of payment to select from. Why restrict the customer to pay when each customer will have their own preferences

Step 1 is to understand what you're looking to achieve. Are you trying to offer a differentiator to your competitors, to add efficiency, or reduce friction/costs/complexity? Working with many different providers, especially in the age of Fintechs everywhere, may seem attractive, but will undoubtedly add to complexity. Assessing who can fulfil those needs effectively, should form part of the process. One should look for a service provider with a proven track record, domain expertise & deployment capability, with ease of integration & the capability to provide solid back-office support to enhance the value proposition of cutting edge tech. Without it an attractive payment system quickly becomes a business risk if there is resource strain.

The first step is to clearly identify which problem you're trying to solve. By doing so, you can devise a solution that is more convenient or effective than the current approach. Focusing on the customer journey first, ensures you don't create a technically perfect solution that no one wants to use.

Cross-border transactions are frequently overlooked. Traditional payment systems tend to be costly, inefficient, and slow. It's understandable, given that concerns like fraud, foreign exchange fees, and excessive charges present significant challenges that must be addressed. Institutions like HSBC provide multi-currency accounts and have access to the Faster Payments System (FPS). With FPS networks now available in numerous countries, the components for improved transaction processes are coming together. Examples such as Prompt Pay in Thailand and WeChat Pay in China showcase exemplary user experiences. With these advancements, seamless cross-border payments are just around the corner.

Before considering the first question is even more important to consider the second : "Who are your target customers and markets", because if your market specifics feature an audience propense to cash payments only like cash at delivery, for example, you need to stick with the delivery partners for managing cash flows. Same is true for the refunds , disputes and chargebacks

We often see the most successful merchants integrate a platform that allows for agility and scalability in real-time, giving you the opportunity to accept any payment type rather than being pigeon-holed into a few payment types.

The current ecommerce payment gateway provides the various payment options for any customer. This needs to be extended to physical payments to enable consistent payment options & experience

Offer as many payment methods as you like but also make sure offering these help scale your business do not agree to a new payment trend if the fee percentage is too high and not right for your profit margins. Also do not clutter the payment page its great to offer a larger selection of payments but your customer may become overwhelmed in the user experience when it comes to most important time of the sale.

When choosing a payment system for your business, it's paramount to understand how it will integrate with your operations. For instance, are you selling online, through a physical store, or both? If you're operating in both realms, it's advisable to select a provider that can accommodate both while delivering unified reports and payment flows. If your business is prone to online fraud and chargebacks, choose a provider with robust fraud prevention. Otherwise, consider that false positives might cost more than occasional chargebacks. If you have low sales volumes on social media, manual P2P payment links suffice. However, for hundreds of daily orders, seek providers that automate your reconciliation.

The ideal solution would be where you don’t have to choose the right payment methods on your own, but where your payment orchestration partner assists in that process, making it as slick & easy as possible, with business intelligence & reporting underscoring the decisioning on which payment method is most applicable to a specific transaction. Utilising expensive mandate-driven debit order collections, e.g., in cases where there is less risk related to non-payment, such as subscription services, versus cases where risk is inherent in the transaction, such as lending or hire-purchase, is a good example. The right payment method should be intuitive on a single transaction basis & remain so at volume, both for instant payment & at batch level.

Important to not get swayed by the shiny objects in the Fintech world right now and make sure to partner with someone that innovates on a foundation of experience and the utmost data security. It’s easy to get caught up in partnering with someone that has some UX bells and whistles but doesn’t have the tech sophistication necessary for ultimate fraud protection

Integration is crucial and varies based on factors like daily sales volume and fraud susceptibility. While considering providers, balance integration time and effort against cost. A 5% cheaper MDR isn't beneficial if it demands 300 hours of integration, a cost some businesses might never recoup.

This is the right time to go back to step 1and streamline priorities in the project with your needs as a business. As a merchant you may perceive conversion rate to be most important. From a brand perspective security may be more important. Business wise time to market may dominate. Adapt the milestones and your proceeding within the project to those goals.

Integrating the ideal payment solution is akin to setting the heartbeat of your commerce operations. These solutions form the nexus between customer intent and transaction completion. It's essential to seek tools that blend into your existing systems, grow as your business scales (scalability), and stand firm against technical hitches (reliability). In today's digital age, uncompromising security is non-negotiable, while flexibility ensures you can pivot as market dynamics shift. Rich functionality offers a robust user experience. Beyond features, don't forget the subtler aspects: transparent fee structures, responsive support, and a provider's reputation, which often narrates its history of trust and innovation in the field.

Integrating payment solutions can be more complex than necessary, and one needs to keep in mind that the CEO, CFO and CTO oftentimes have different views on integration. API integration should be augmented with documentation and deployment understanding through to the enablement of use cases. Merely providing a tech solution is not integration, and regulatory compliance should be part and parcel of this process. Fraud management and mitigation should be readily integrated into the journey.

Consider payment orchestration as enhancement to payment automation, but not focused on a single payment rail or payment type. Payment automation should therefore include the capability to cross-activate different payment & collection channels, orchestrated in such a way that it actively utilises the available data & logic processes (via machine learning/AI/rule sets) to ensure that customer engagement is maximised. By activating the right payment type, orchestrated via automated processes, costs are managed, transaction success increases & risk & fraud is minimised. Automation & orchestration without reporting & reconciliation adds significant resource stress in the administration of payment processes if utilisation & volumes increase.

Consider using a payment partner who can consolidate the remittance and funding to streamline your treasury work and provide realtime fraud tools. Having a partner who can do the next day funding and take care of the return research and advise/provide controls to keep returns from skyrocketing can greatly reduce operational complexity and protect your revenue stream.

Payment settlements and reconciliations can be tedious especially due to various scheme requirements, time lags etc. Automating the processes to handle reconciliations with schemes and your customers makes it faster and saves a lot of time, which means you can add that back as value to the merchants and a differentiation point while reducing financial risks. When automation done well, it makes reporting and auditing, also disputes for a transaction easy to identify and report on.

Navigating the world of payment workflows is like choreographing a dance; every step, from invoicing to auditing, must flow harmoniously. These sequences, unfolding before, during, and post-transaction, demand meticulousness. Embracing automation, be it through software applications, cloud-driven services or timely triggers, is akin to hiring a maestro to lead this dance. By automating, you're not just speeding up the rhythm but also ensuring each step's precision. The dividends? A treasure trove of time, financial savings, and optimized resources. Automated systems are like a sharp-eyed sentinel, enhancing accuracy, ramping up efficiency, and ensuring every move is compliant, making the entire performance both graceful and faultless.

Optimizing for performance is a huge task and especially important to ensure that the business is performing and payment solutions is perceived with confidence among the consumers of the solution. This requires a disciplined approached to collect the payment information appropriately to analyse the trends on decline rates, chargebacks, refunds etc. This helps to identify and reduce fraud, have process optimisation, technology optimisation which all contribute towards customer satisfaction and growth. Not much discussed is that have higher approval rates also allows for faster processing and reducing the load on payment systems!

Optimizing payment performance is analogous to a maestro fine-tuning a symphony. It's not just about the music being played, but how well each note resonates. This "musicality" in the payment realm is gauged by keenly observing data and metrics. Performance indicators like conversion rates or decline rates are the individual notes, while aspects like customer satisfaction comprise the broader melodies. Just as a maestro relies on their ear and the orchestra's feedback, businesses employ dashboards, reports, and analytic tools, making sense of these intricate metrics. By striking the right chords in payment performance, businesses ensure not only a harmonious transaction journey but also a standing ovation from their audience: the customers.

To keep payment systems or operations up to date takes careful monitoring of data and the market that you operate in. Payment optimization is a competitive strategy for a lot of companies, but those decisions have to be data backed and fit the needs of the end user. Decisions based on a hypothesis of what could happen could lead to a clunkier experience for customers and in turn raise cart abandonment and less conversions. Check your data. Trust your data. Act on data.

The payment landscape is undergoing profound transformations, perhaps akin to the changes seen after the introduction of the 'Diners Club' credit card in the late 50s. Open Banking featuring VRP (Variable Recurring Payments) is set to revolutionize subscription management. Additionally, P2P transactions such as FedNow and Stablecoins like PYUSD have the potential to redefine cross-border payments. As these innovations rapidly reshape payment methods, it's crucial to select a provider that can match this pace of innovation and to remain ready for integrations with various partners. In the payments landscape, as people say, you can only be sure that: Change is the only constant.

Stay up to date with new payment technology and offerings if you have partnered with a good payment system they should not only keep you up to date with compliancy in the latest payment regulations but should be sharing innovation too.

Certainly! If you have the right payments partners, they should be staying at the cutting edge on your behalf as well and then coming to you with insights on innovations happening, industry data to consider and talk about, etc

Starting with your customer use case in mind is fundamental. Payments is a complex environment with many options (some of which compete for the customer’s attention). Build in response to primary needs and then expand outwards.

Risk management including credit risk as well as fraud prevention plays a huge role in accerting profitability. Make sure to consider those risks and their mitigation right from the start. Especially new entrants will be quickly attacked by fraudsters. Evolving fraud patterns will spread widely and lead to massive attacks.

Remember: Before opting for a trendy or traditional payment solution, deeply understand both your business and customer needs. For instance, if you're an accounting service generating tax slips for KYC-verified customers, fraud prevention might not be your priority. But if you're handling credit card payments for a betting platform, the majority of your attention should be on fraud prevention. Don't invest in solutions for problems you don't face.

Implement real-time payment processing capabilities to enable instant fund transfers, quicker transaction settlements, and immediate access to funds, providing users and businesses with the convenience and speed required to meet their financial obligations and capitalize on time-sensitive opportunities.