Hoang Leung, Head of Payments Products & Solutions at Very Good Security, explains how merchants can maximise ROI through payment orchestration when working with multiple payment service providers
According to S&P Global, 67% of merchants surveyed have adopted a multi-provider payments strategy to gain greater flexibility to grow their business, improve customer experiences, and reduce costs.
However, the study also found that working with multiple payment service providers (PSPs) adds operational complexity and demands continuous resources to realise the potential advantages.
Payment orchestration reduces multi-provider complexity
Payment orchestration can reduce the complexity of a multi-PSP strategy by unifying and managing payment transactions across providers. Automation and intelligence streamline the routing of transactions based on rules and logic. For example, it can determine which payment provider offers the lowest processing fee for debit cards or support local payment options in a particular country.
Broadly speaking, a payment orchestration solution allows merchants to more efficiently:
Avoid payment service provider lock-in
Reach new markets
Reduce processing fees
Increase conversions
Reduce fraud/chargebacks
Improve customer experience with fewer declines.
Not all payment orchestration providers are alike
Most payment orchestrations solutions focus on optimising one portion of the payment flow - from transaction routing to reconciliation. To maximise your ROI, consider a payment orchestration solution that optimises the entire payment process, including checkout, vaulting, and card lifecycle management.
Universal checkout delivers a consistent, low-cost branded experience
As a merchant, you know the importance of providing a great consumer experience. But working with multiple PSPs can result in a disjointed brand experience for consumers across your payment providers and channels (mobile, web, instore). This is because each PSP has its checkout technology. In addition, you’ll have to pay for that disjointed experience; each PSPs checkout requires your development and operational support.
Universal checkout delivers a single front door to your payments ecosystem connecting your gateways, providers, and third-party APIs that provide a brandable and consistent checkout user interface across browsers and devices and multiple providers. The added benefit is the reduction in development and operational costs.
Personal vault with aliasing lets you monetise your data
Most payment service providers offer their vaulting and payment token capabilities to capture, secure, and store card data. This also allows providers to access the data for insights that benefits their operations (such as improving auth rates). However, some providers limit your access to the data for your business. In addition, each PSP has its vault, which leaves data siloed.
Payment orchestration solutions offer a single vault and token which gives you access to your data and reduces the complexity of working with multiple vaults and tokens.
A more robust payment orchestration solution offers to vault with aliasing. With aliasing, you’re able to secure and capture more data about your consumers giving you greater insights. For instance, you may discover that a certain percentage of Black Friday shoppers also buy your deals on Cyber Monday. What do they buy each day? What are the price points? What don’t they buy?
Vaulting with aliasing also addresses the issue of data fragmentation across multiple payment providers, limiting your ability to use the data to achieve different business objectives. For example, having data fragmented across one PSP for your online transactions and another PSP for in-store makes it impossible to identify a customer across the two channels. This can cripple marketing efforts such as customer rewards and loyalty, thus hampering the overall customer experience.
Card lifecycle management increases payment authorisation rates
Look for a payment orchestration solution provider that offers multiple options to keep card data current. It should include account updater services, network tokenisation with direct-to-network capabilities, and adaptive updater which update cards that are not subscribed to any existing card lifecycle management technology. Single integration of these multiple approaches across all your providers gives you greater control and cost-effective coverage across your payments’ ecosystem.
You’re in control
With more payment service providers competing for your business, invest the time to select the right payment orchestration solution to maximise your multi-provider strategy ROI without giving up control of your data.
For more insights, download Business drivers for a multi-provider approach to payment processing.
About Hoang Leung
Hoang Leung is the Very Good Security (VGS) in-house payment leader. He is responsible for the overall card issuing and payments strategy at VGS. His experience includes launching a denovo credit card consumer and small business program at East West Bank from 0 to 1. Prior to VGS, Hoang worked at Visa where he was responsible for the Consumer Credit Product Platforms and also led the product efforts to build and launch the Visa Infinite platform targeted at high-net-worth cardholders. He also spent time at Wells Fargo where he launched the Campus Card program.
About Very Good Security
Very Good Security (VGS) is on a mission to secure the storage and exchange of the world’s payment data while maximising its utility. Through a Zero Data™ approach to data security, VGS empowers companies to turn the burden of sensitive data into an asset by creating opportunities for more revenue through data monetisation, new business lines, increased product innovation, omnichannel insights, fraud reduction, and beyond. For more information about VGS, visit verygoodsecurity.com.
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