The payment challenge that almost broke my payment gateway

From time to time, you have a day so bad it’s like everything’s falling apart. Something goes wrong, and you’re just done.

That day came for me a few years ago when I was ceo at paylane, a payment gateway company processing payments for merchants across 26 countries.

Let’s be straight - bad days come often in an entrepreneur’s life. It’s part of the journey.

But this one was two or three times worse than most bad days we have as entrepreneurs. It was one of those days when you think, w*f is happening here?

As I mentioned, we processed online payments for merchants in 26 countries. These merchants, in turn, were accepting payments from customers in over 120 countries worldwide.

How were these payments handled? By cards, of course.

And we were able to process these transactions because we were a payment facilitator. We were a licensed payment institution, with an acquirer where we held a merchant account through which the card payments were processed.

Everything was fine.

Until one day.

Then, everything changed.

One word: Wirecard. Yes, that Wirecard - the one you can find in documentaries all over the internet, even on major streaming platforms.

Yep, our main acquirer was Wirecard.

Of course, we had backups, agreements with other acquirers. But Wirecard was the primary one, where we processed most SMB transactions.

So what happened? Wirecard happened.

We didn't know anything beforehand. So when news about what was happening there hit global media, we were shocked.

And terrified.

Because let’s be honest - our merchants were caught in the middle. Their transactions were there.

All the Wirecard employees told us it was just a huge misunderstanding, that everything was fine and would stay fine, and we had nothing to worry about.

But with every passing hour, it was getting worse.

I like this kind of business war mode. I think I'm at my best then - most motivated, ready to act. I know I have to do something, or else the company will be gone.

So, we worked like crazy. Tons of brainstorms, calls, meetings, and planning. Within hours, we had a roadmap focused on five things:

1?? Calculating potential damages and rescuing as much of merchants' (and our) money at Wirecard as possible (on our side: accounting + compliance)

2?? Talking to customers, negotiating, reassuring them that everything would be fine (customer support + sales)

3?? Securing payment facilitator status with new acquirers, existing and new ones (me + compliance)

4?? Closing the Wirecard connection for most merchants (though some wanted to stay with them and wait) and integrating with new acquirers (IT)

5?? The craziest part: building a proxy - what I’d call a payment orchestration platform today (me)

The fifth one was wild. I wasn't thinking clearly. I didn't realize how hard it was. I didn't know it was basically impossible to build such a platform in a few days.

And maybe that's why I built it.

The best things I've done in business were things I didn't know were impossible.

Back then, my focus was on one thing: saving as many transactions for our merchants as possible. So, I decided to build a proxy system - one API, where each merchant could connect and process transactions through... one of our competitors.

On one side of the proxy was a merchant, and on the other side, a payment gateway where this merchant had a merchant account. It could be a global player like stripe, adyen, braintree or a domestic gateway.

It didn’t matter.

I could connect anyone to the proxy just to give merchants a way to avoid losing transactions.

The reason was simple: I knew that getting a payment facilitator status with another acquirer would take time - at least a few weeks. And if I told merchants they couldn't process card payments for a few weeks, they'd move to another PSP. I wasn't ready to say goodbye.

By building this platform, I could tell them: Look, I know this is tough, and I'm sorry, but I have a solution. Maybe not the best, but it's something.

In my head, paylane, once it regained payment facilitator status, would be one of the gateways connected to this proxy. Merchants connected to the proxy wouldn't need to reintegrate with us when we came back.

And what happened when I offered this solution to merchants?

Some left.

But most said, "Okay, let's do it."

Some changed their minds after I built the proxy. But most integrated.

And when we regained our payment facilitator status, many of them switched back to us. Either through their previous direct integration or the proxy.

A few days later, I realized I had just built a new fintech product - one that actually worked and solved real problems.

This is how my payment orchestration product came to life.

After all these years, do I think I did it right? Did I react well?

Yes, I think so.

I had no choice. I just switched to doer mode and worked like crazy.