A delightful guide; Picking your first payment gateway (Part 2)

Your payment services provider checklist.

In the last article, we focus on what a PSP is and understanding the pricing that comes with it. Now, let’s dive into the many features you should be looking out for.?

It’s 2023, there’s no reason you should be settling for a payment services provider that doesn’t tick all the boxes!

?? Payment types supported

Make sure the PSP supports the types of payments you need. This includes debit cards and credit cards, and locally and international cards too.?

Your PSP should support popular card brands (Visa and Mastercard) and not so popular card brands (American Express and Union Pay cards) to make payments convenient for customers.

Google Pay and Apple Pay are a popular payment choice for consumers, so seek out PSPs that offer integrations for Google Pay and Apple Pay.?

?? Security

Look for a PSP that uses industry-standard security measures to protect sensitive customer information.?

Never work with a PSP that is not PCI-DSS compliant as this means your customers card data will be susceptible to leakage, theft, or fraud. Always ensure that your PSP audits its infrastructure using third-party security audit firms.?

?? Fees

We covered this in the previous article, but it’s important so we will again! Compare the fees charged by different PSPs, including transaction fees, monthly fees, and setup costs. Perform a holistic comparison of what you expect to pay given your own transaction patterns.

?? Integration

Choose a PSP that can be easily integrated with your website, shopping cart, or sales channels.?

If you sell online, API integrations are key. If you sell via social media, payment links are more important than APIs. If you sell in-person QR codes or POS machines become more important.

?? Customer service

Spending days waiting in a queue for support or an email back can harm your business - especially if you’re facing problems with processing payments.?

Should something go wrong, customer support needs to be available around the clock, with options to get in touch in a variety of ways. This can also be incredibly helpful in the setup phase.

?? Scalability

Not all PSPs are created equal. The last thing you want is to integrate with a PSP that ruins the entire user flow and messes up your funnel metrics. You should care about your payment conversion rates more than your PSP pricing.?

At the end of a day, a single lost sale caused by a frustrated user, can add up to way more than the difference between PSP A and PSP B’s pricing structure. So, test your PSP’s payment flows. Compare them with each other and opt for one that best works with your existing user experience.

?? Additional features

Some PSPs offer additional features such as recurring billing, fraud detection and prevention, and data analytics. Always review the additional features that your PSP offers, and try to gauge their development velocity. How often do they add new features? How amazing would it be for your business if new features are added to your PSP’s product offering every couple of weeks?

A wonderful, but often overlooked feature, is the ability to manage refunds and disputes effectively and efficiently. How does your PSP expect you to initiate refunds? How do they expect you to respond to chargebacks and disputes from your customers? Ideally, the PSP offers you a seamless dashboard to initiate refunds seamlessly and manage the end-to-end dispute process with a dedicated customer support team.

? Customer reviews / provider reputation

If your PSP is not yet well-established, check customer reviews online to get a sense of the experiences of other businesses using the PSP. Does your PSP post testimonials on their website? What do users say on social media? You do this before buying electronics, why not do it when buying your PSP’s services?

?? Compliance

Payment Service Providers (PSPs) are regulated in order to protect consumers and ensure the stability and integrity of the financial system.

Regulation of PSPs helps to create a fair and stable environment for electronic payment, and ensures that consumers, merchants, and other stakeholders can trust that their transactions are secure and that their rights are protected.

In short, always ensure you work with a safe, secure, and regulated PSP. To do this, we suggest asking them which regulator authorized them to provide payment services, and ask them for a link, ideally a public registry,? proving this information.

Mamo is regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA), which is the regulatory agency responsible for overseeing financial services in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC). This means that Mamo is subject to strict regulatory oversight and must adhere to high standards of security and compliance.

At Mamo, scalability and transparency go hand in hand. Browse our pricing plans and features - or get in touch with our sales team to start collecting payments the best way you can. ??