Wolfgang Berner, PAY.ON: "Open payment infrastructure can accelerate business growth, especially in a cross-border context"

In February 2015, PAY.ON first launched its Open Payment Platform, based on open API architecture. Could you briefly describe the key features which make the solution stand apart from others in the market?

Simplicity and flexibility are the hallmarks of the Open Payment Platform, but what sets our solution apart is that we have made our entire payment infrastructure – including our global payment network of more than 300 card acquirers and alternative payment methods – available via a single, unified API. This means that our client’s merchants only need to integrate once with the PAY.ON platform, and they can access a flexible, state-of-the-art ‘toolkit’ that is accessible through a comprehensive developer portal. This brings together all information and documentation in one single, easily accessible place, which is usually linked to directly from the payment provider’s web page. Another unique aspect is that the entire platform – and this extends to the Developer Portal interactive documentation – is white label, which means that payment providers can customize and brand our industry-leading open payment technology as their own solution.

Peach Payments was among the first customers that integrated PAY.ON’s platform with their core services. What was the direct impact on their business operations in their core market, South Africa, and beyond?

Peach Payments switched to the Open Payment Platform in early 2015, not long after the initial launch. Immediately following the transition, it was evident that Peach Payments resumed its upward growth trajectory that had shown some signs of plateauing. Within just two months of integrating to the platform they had increased transaction volume by 100%. The Open Payment Platform made this possible by removing internal resource constraints that were inhibiting Peach Payments’ ability to rapidly onboard merchants and expand their payment services into new markets.

What key factors did Peach Payments take into account when selecting PAY.ON for its ambitious expansion across the entire African continent?

Peach Payments’ early success in their domestic market (South Africa) was due to their strongly customer-centric approach and next-generation payments services, and they felt that they could achieve significant growth and success by expanding into new markets in Sub-Saharan Africa. Rapid expansion, however, presented many complexities, not least the heterogeneous nature of payments in their target markets. Technical connectivity to card acquirers and locally-preferred alternative payment methods were needed, and PAY.ON – through its global payment network – already had most of the necessary technical integrations, and closed remaining gaps for Peach Payments through the Connector-On-Demand program. PAY.ON also enabled Peach Payments to deliver on their ‘developer first’ approach, with interactive developer documentation – API Docs – that can be branded and customized. Step-by-step guides, interactive tutorials, and a ‘sandbox’ for live testing to allow developers to fully leverage the benefits of RESTful open API architecture.

What were the main impediments that Peach Payments encountered in expanding their business operations before the implementation of the Open Payment Platform?

As a customer-centric payment provider, Peach Payments had to find a way to scale their business and expand, without the significant burden of increased direct support. This was addressed partly through the previously mentioned developer documentation, but also through streamlining and automation of merchant onboarding processes. The ability to get merchants up and running quickly, with simplified integration efforts, also provided a competitive advantage as Peach Payments began to expand its operations.

Judging from your experience with Peach Payments, what would be the top three needs that an African payment gateway generally requires from payments providers like PAY.ON?

Firstly, merchants are often lacking resources, so minimal integration effort and user-friendly technology is particularly important. This is true generally, but in Africa in particular there is less developer talent capable of doing complex integrations, so simplicity is even more important. As a payment provider in Africa you need to serve a lot of smaller merchants that are generating small revenues, so a high degree of self-service is required to effectively manage those merchants. A unified RESTful API with a self-service developer portal is technologically the best way to address this. Also, Africa is an interesting region in that less than 25% of the population has a bank account, but more than 80% can access a mobile device. So it is vital to incorporate the relevant m-commerce solutions in each market. Mobile SDKs and mobile-friendly payment widgets (such as our own COPYandPAY) are therefore very valuable for African payment gateways. Finally, as already mentioned, payment providers need to integrate card acquirers and alternative payment methods in diverse markets. It can be difficult to always know exactly where the next opportunity will come from, and being ‘plugged in’ to a global payment network that offers the required technical connectivity allows payment providers to remain agile and responsive to market needs.

Could you outline the specific results Peach Payments achieved by implementing the Open Payment Platform?

Streamlined and automated merchant onboarding processes have enabled Peach Payments to reduce onboarding time by up to 30%. Merchants are up and running more quickly, which means faster and overall greater revenue growth. 100% growth in monthly transaction volume was achieved within two months of integrating the Open Payment Platform, and nearly 400% business growth has been achieved in less than a year. Peach Payments has been able to rapidly scale their business, and is now expanding operations into Nigeria, Kenya, and Ghana, as well as strengthening their position in South Africa, Mauritius, and Namibia. The ‘openness’ of the Open Payment Platform, specifically the continuous feedback and improvement mechanism, has also given Peach Payments the power to shape the platform into exactly the kind of service their merchant clients need.

The full Peach Payments case study, “Facilitating cross-border expansion with the Open Payment Platform” is available for free download from the PAY.ON website.

About Wolfgang Berner
Wolfgang is PAY.ON’s SVP Product, bringing to his role experience as a developer, project manager, and product development expert. Most recently, Wolfgang has been instrumental in the development of PAY.ON’s Open Payment Platform.

About PAY.ON, An ACI Worldwide Company
PAY.ON delivers white label global payment gateway solutions to payment service providers, ISOs, acquirers, ISVs, and VARs, enabling them to fully outsource payment transaction processing or integrate a gateway-to-gateway solution. Modular solutions enable payment providers to rapidly increase revenues, reduce costs and risk, and accelerate expansion into international markets.