Why payment orchestration matters: insights from IXOPAY

The Paypers has sat down with Adam Vissing, VP of Sales and Business Development at IXOPAY, to explore how payment orchestration has evolved and reshaped global commerce for enterprise merchants. 

In a rapidly evolving payments landscape, orchestration has emerged as a foundational layer for global merchants navigating scale, complexity, and competition. What began as a response to the growing fragmentation in payments has become a non-negotiable requirement for Tier 1 merchants. Since entering the market in 2016, IXOPAY has focused on delivering orchestration built specifically for large, globally active businesses. Its platform supports complex needs, high volumes, and multi-regional operations, enabling merchants to manage payment operations with more agility, resilience, and visibility. 

Adoption varies depending on maturity and priorities 

Enterprise merchants approach orchestration with different goals, depending on their growth phase and operational focus. For scale-ups expanding into new markets, connectivity and routing capabilities are key priorities. In contrast, mature businesses often seek automation, cost optimisation, and back-office efficiencies, particularly through features like automated reconciliation and tokenisation. 

Despite varying use cases, most enterprise users consistently implement core functionalities such as transaction tokenisation, smart routing, and post-processing tools that simplify financial operations. 

A gateway for banks, PSPs, and financial institutions 

IXOPAY’s platform also powers a wide range of financial institutions, including acquiring banks, payment facilitators, and ISOs, through white-label solutions. These institutions often face challenges with outdated gateway technologies and look to orchestration to modernise their client offering. 

By integrating with IXOPAY, these entities can reduce merchant onboarding times and offer a more flexible, modular experience. The platform facilitates quick integration of new merchants, reduces go-live timelines, and positions incumbents to compete with next-generation PSPs. 

Beyond ecommerce: orchestration goes omnichannel 

Initially focused on ecommerce, orchestration now increasingly supports omnichannel payment strategies. Enterprises with retail operations demand flexible setups that unify online and in-store payments. IXOPAY responds to these demands by integrating with terminal gateways, enabling unified transaction initiation across various POS providers through a single API. Common use cases include handling complex retail flows such as buy online, return in store (BORIS) and operating in multiple geographies with varied POS acquirers. 

A neutral infrastructure approach 

In a market where many orchestration platforms are operated by acquirers or PSPs, neutrality has become a key differentiator. Merchants today need full control over their payment stack, including the freedom to choose their providers and route transactions without platform-driven bias. 

IXOPAY’s role is to provide infrastructure that empowers merchants rather than locking them into specific partners or conditions. True orchestration enables full visibility, open connectivity, and transparent decision-making without conflicts of interest. 

The future: AI, agentic payments, and orchestration as default 

Emerging technologies are already shaping the future of orchestration. AI is being applied beyond fraud prevention: supporting use cases in routing optimisation, developer experience, and payments analytics. Meanwhile, the rise of agent-based payments and autonomous transaction models is accelerating the relevance of tokenisation technologies that provide the underlying credentials for these agents.