Payment providers offer different ways to process payments, including cards, wallets, and bank transfers. Each provider offers different methods, regions, and fees. Integrating multiple providers allows businesses to better manage risk and reach a wider audience; however, there is an increased complexity to manage.
Implementation of a payment orchestration provider simplifies the multiple payment providers into one streamlined solution. This enables your organization to partner with multiple payment solutions without the headache of managing multiple systems and dashboards.
Why do businesses select multiple providers?
There are many strong arguments for an organization to select multiple payment partners.
Increased payment options for customers
Consumers have different preferences for how they want to make a payment. Some want to pay with a debit or credit card, some prefer digital wallets, and others use “buy now, pay later.” Working with multiple providers increases the payment options for your customers without the hassle of developing new integrations to support new payment methods.
Improved approval rates
One provider may be more effective in a particular country or card network than others. Since different providers perform better in different countries, having more than one route allows each payment to be sent through the provider most likely to succeed.
Decreased fees
If you want to be more profitable, spend less on payment processing fees. When you connect with more than one payment provider, you are able to evaluate costs, negotiate better rates, and route transactions through the cheaper provider, when necessary.
Lower risk of downtime
If one payment provider has a technical issue or goes down completely, you still have other providers at your disposal. This means that if your payment providers are down, your customers will not encounter any payment issues, and you will not lose any sales.
Main blocks to consider for
Multiple payment providers are not necessarily a silver bullet. There are real challenges you must be prepared to respond to from the very beginning, including:
- Increased technical requirements
Each provider has their own version of integrations and subsequent updates. This may overwhelm your technical team and undermine your future plans.
- Data Silos
It’s difficult to analyze overall performance when each provider has different dashboards and reports. This makes it difficult to assess overall revenue, understand why failures occur, and identify patterns of fraud across channels.
- Operational Overhead
Your team has to learn different systems, interact with multiple support teams, and manage contracts and compliance responsibilities across multiple providers.
- Compliance and Security
Every provider you work with increases your risk of exposure in relation to the card and bank data that you exchange and store. Data security and privacy are your responsibility, and they must be handled safely throughout every step of the process.
How Payment Orchestration Fits Into The Picture
For many businesses, this is where a payment orchestration provider is useful. Orchestration can be thought of as a smart “control tower” that sits between your business and all of your payment partners.
Here’s how it typically assists you:
- Enables a single connection while connecting to multiple payment gateways and methods simultaneously.
- Collects payment data and consolidates it so you can view trends and make decisions more quickly.
- Assists you in integrating new payment methods and providers without having to completely redesign your checkout.
- Customizes the payment stream through the most beneficial processor based on parameters you define such as country, card type, cost, etc.
- Uses a different provider if the initial one fails, to ensure the payment still goes through.
With this structure, you continue to have access to a multitude of providers while enjoying simplified, more organized day-to-day operations.
When it is time to consider orchestration
Moving your payment service to another provider can take time, but from what you have said so far, I can assume that, right now, your business has more pressing issues than switching payment service providers. If you are spending time fixing payments rather than growing your business, you are right. An optimized, structured system would benefit you and the business if it makes it possible to:
- Decrease the volume of manual input required on the tech and finance side
- Create a streamlined payment system for your data
- Simplify the process of changing payment service providers
- Allow for a more agile response to service providers in the event of an outage or fee modifications
In short, managing multiple payment providers can be a big win when it is done with a clear plan. With the right mix of partners, smart rules, and possibly an orchestration layer on top, you can give your customers more ways to pay, keep more revenue, and stay ready for growth without tying your team in knots.
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