23rd May 2023

• Payment orchestration sector set to grow to $2.5 trillion by 2027 
• Growing demand from financial institutions to adopt faster, more secure and consumer-friendly payment solutions
• Incumbent banks looking to orchestrators to accelerate the introduction of payment options to drive retention and revenue growth
• Paydock has notable success in the growing sector with large financial institutions and merchants adopting its platform to manage payment connections, reconciliation and settlement. 

Paydock, the leading pure-play orchestration platform, has announced a £25m Series A funding round from Silverstripe Investment Management Limited (‘Silverstripe’).

Paydock is a payment orchestrator that offers financial institutions and merchants rapid connectivity to fintech and payments systems without disrupting current infrastructure. Paydock’s agnostic platform minimises heavy costs and flattens pervasive risks in traditional multi-vendor payment solutions.  It allows customers to ‘plug and play’ vendors while closing common security gaps. Paydock’s bank-grade security posture has made it a standout in the sector through its auditable and traceable API stack.

Recent large-scale shifts in e-commerce have accelerated the entry of innovative payment systems to the market, offering consumers an unprecedented choice while simultaneously introducing problems for merchants. Merchants have struggled to integrate, maintain and optimise these vendors while shouldering escalating administration, security and consumer experience problems.

Paydock is honoured to be the first orchestration platform to be adopted as a front-line strategy for a major financial institution following growing traction amongst its merchant base. Their novel partnership approach enables customers to leap-frog generations of payments technology and prepare for the future. Paydock’s blue-chip client list includes the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, retailing giant Coles, and not-for-profit organisations such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

Paydock’s vision is to work with selected institutions while continuing to offer its platform to merchants seeking frictionless access to the fintech market as a whole. As financial institutions become particularly aware of their urgent need to better support digital merchants, Paydock creates an opportunity to resolve these issues at scale.

Paydock is emerging as a default frontline solution for globally connected financial institutions and merchants.

Rob Lincolne, Founder and CEO of Paydock, said: “We are thrilled to welcome Silverstripe to the Paydock story. Having established a deep relationship over the past 12 months, their experience and track record in the finance and tech sector will supercharge our mission to transform the payments sector for the better. We are fully focused now on doubling down on our vision to deliver the world’s best orchestration solution. This funding enables us to accelerate that vision, introduce customers and partners faster and bring forward our ambitious vision of the future in payments.”

Alex Cuppage, Partner at Silverstripe, said: “We are excited to partner with Paydock and support their mission to simplify and streamline payments for businesses around the world. Paydock has developed a powerful platform that offers unparalleled flexibility, security, and reliability. We believe that Paydock is well positioned to capture a significant share of the growing payment orchestration market, and we look forward to working closely with the company’s talented team to help them achieve their goals.”

Silverstripe, London headquartered, has been active in Europe since 2013. Backed by IAG Capital, a major US single family office with a 25+ year track record of investing in highly successful fintech and financial services businesses. Silverstripe has deployed over £500m into the UK in recent years. 

For Financial Institutions that would like to know more about how to transform their payments offering, please visit: https://paydock.com/for-banks/

To find out more about Paydock visit www.paydock.com and www.iagsilverstripe.com.

CONTACT:

For media enquiries related to Paydock, please contact:

MINERVA PR 

Malika Shermatova 

+44 (0)7979 852604 

[email protected] 

For media enquiries related to this investment and/or Silverstripe, please contact:

Camarco

Louise Dolan

+44 (0)7446 870025

[email protected]

Sean Palmer

+44 (0)7591 760844

[email protected]

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Paydock

Founded in 2015, Paydock (www.paydock.com) is a leading enterprise-grade commerce orchestration platform focused on reducing the substantial cost and effort within a merchant’s payments experience. Paydock is dedicated to revolutionising the payment industry by simplifying payment management and resolving systemic inefficiencies and risks associated with the industry’s growth, such as ever-increasing complexity, lost profit and material risk. 

Paydock processes millions of monthly payments through its platform for businesses across all industry sectors, including financial institutions, household brand retailers, travel, insure-tech and not-for-profit. Paydock’s platform has generated substantial ROI gains for customers, dramatically shrinking the total cost of payments ownership, including back-office administration, processing, technical, compliance and opportunity costs.

About Silverstripe Investment Management Limited

Silverstripe, London headquartered, has been active in Europe since 2013. Backed by IAG Capital, a major US single family office with a 25+ year track record of investing in highly successful financial services businesses, Silverstripe has deployed over £500m into the UK in recent years. 

Silverstripe seeks to partner with exceptional management teams who have built businesses with a clear competitive advantage and strong underlying unit economics. It provides experience and specialist practitioner-based support in the development, operations and governance of portfolio companies, choosing to lead investment rounds with significant minority/majority stakes. Our investment thesis focuses on building exceptional scalable businesses for the long term that make a difference to their chosen market. 

This International Women’s Day, we celebrate the incredible achievements of women all around the world and what they stand for, we also want to recognise and celebrate the extraordinary group of empowering women across our global team who inspire us every day. 

This year’s campaign theme is #EmbraceEquity, highlighting the importance that equal opportunities alone aren’t enough – people start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action. To learn more about the campaign, click here. 

This day serves as an important reminder to continue to challenge the status quo and a commitment to achieving gender equality and embracing equity for all. 

In honour of International Women’s Day, we’ve interviewed 5 female employees from the Paydock team and we will be publishing a series of these interviews over the course of the week. Take a moment to read and learn about their personal experiences, what this day means to them, and how Paydock provides support for women on their journeys.

Today, we talk with Garima Shrivastav, our Head of Merchant Onboarding.

Hi Garima! Tell us abit about yourself and what you do at Paydock. 

I am the Head of Merchant Onboarding at Paydock. I live in Melbourne with my husband and 2 young boys. 

I spent most of my career in the Fintech industry working across USA, India and Australia for various banking organisations before joining Paydock in 2021. Having worked in many different roles as a Software Developer, Business Analyst, Solution Architect, and governance. I then found my Nirvana in the Project Management space, it has been a long journey of 19 years but I have enjoyed every moment.

Why do you think it is important to celebrate International Women’s Day?

Having lived in various countries and being exposed to different cultures I believe every woman needs to be celebrated. The way a woman juggles seamlessly between her many responsibilities in life, she needs to be thanked every day, International Women’s Day is a good opportunity to express our gratitude to all the women who contribute in our life.

Do you have any female role models that inspire you in your career?

I am most inspired by my mom who runs her own rubber products manufacturing company and is equally proficient in her personal life. Her biggest quality is prioritisation as she is able to dedicate sufficient time to the family and not miss any opportunity to celebrate – no matter how small the occasion is. In her professional life, she is equally dedicated and has helped the company grow leaps and bounds under her leadership. She is and will always be my source of inspiration.

What advice would you give to females considering a career in fintech?

The Fintech industry is an exciting place to be in given all the innovation, prospects and challenges. As is true in any transformational journey, while the industry embraces a new payment ecosystem with numerous new payment methods and providers, it comes with its own share of obstacles and complexity which in turn provides multiple opportunities to grow and shine. So put on your multitasking hats and make your mark!

How is Paydock supporting our women on this journey?

Paydock has a working culture which provides and promotes equal opportunity for women to grow and nurture within the organisation. Along with empowering its women, Paydock provides a flexible and supportive environment which makes it a great place to work.

As we mark International Women’s Day on March 8th, we celebrate the incredible achievements of women around the world. This day serves as an important reminder to continue to challenge the status quo and a commitment to achieving gender equality for all. 

This year’s campaign theme is #EmbraceEquity, highlighting the importance of equitable action towards true inclusion and belonging, rather than just equal opportunities alone. To learn more about the campaign, click here. 

In honour of International Women’s Week, we’ve interviewed 5 exceptional female employees from the Paydock team who inspire us every day and will be publishing these throughout the week. Please take a read as they share their personal experiences, what the day means for them and how Paydock supports women in their journeys. 

Today, we talk with Tobi Popoola, our Product Manager in our Payments department. 

Hi Tobi! Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at Paydock. 

I was born and raised in Nigeria, where I spent the first eight years of my life, I then relocated to the UK with my family, where I continued my education and studied for a degree in Electronic Engineering. I chose this degree because of my interest in technology and where it was heading, only a few of my peers had chosen this path and not many women I knew either, I wanted to learn more abo

After university, I worked with Checkout and Clearbank, where I gained a lot of exposure to the Payments ecosystem, what it is, how it works, etc. Eventually, this led me to my current position at Paydock as a Product Manager within the Payments department. 

In my personal time, I love to travel the world and visit the motherland a lot, I love to stay active with kickboxing and enjoy a good netball match. I’m also a foodie, I love cooking and baking.

Why do you think it is important to celebrate International Women’s Day?

Celebrating International Women’s Day is essential because it’s an opportunity to celebrate women’s achievements and accomplishments over the years. It also connects women from around the world. 

Do you have any female role models that inspire you in your career?

I have worked and been around inspirational women throughout my career and life; each day, I am genuinely inspired by what we do and accomplish and that we can continue to prove anyone who doubted us wrong. 

What advice would you give to female considering a career in fintech?

The advice I would give is not to allow anything to limit her from what she can achieve. Technology will forever continue to evolve, and the finance world is forever changing there is so much potential to learn, to be creative, and to jump on the train of this never-ending cycle of new and fun challenges. 

How is Paydock supporting our women on this journey?

Paydock is supporting women on this journey by providing a safe environment for women to communicate, mentor and support each other. Our culture is very diverse and inclusive, and the empowerment provided to employees, irrespective of gender, is refreshing and inspiring to see for all. 

This International Women’s Day, we celebrate the incredible achievements of women all around the world and what they stand for, we also want to recognise and celebrate the extraordinary group of empowering women across our global team who inspire us every day. 

This year’s campaign theme is #EmbraceEquity, highlighting the importance that equal opportunities alone aren’t enough – people start from different places, so true inclusion and belonging require equitable action. To learn more about the campaign, click here. 

This day serves as an important reminder to continue to challenge the status quo and a commitment to achieving gender equality and embracing equity for all. 

In honour of International Women’s Day, we’ve interviewed 5 female employees from the Paydock team and we will be publishing a series of these interviews over the course of the week. Take a moment to read and learn about their personal experiences, what this day means to them, and how Paydock provides support for women on their journeys.

Today, we talk with Sonet Mudiliyar, our Talent Acquisition Manager based in London, UK.

Hi Sonet! Tell us about you and what you do at Paydock. 

I joined Paydock in July 2021, as the first Talent hire and have scaled the talent team from 1 > 4 employees working remotely and hiring in 40 countries across the globe. 

As Talent Acquisition Manager, I am responsible for overseeing the running of the Talent department, leading the planning, developing, and implementing an effective Talent Acquisition strategy for the organisation, which includes Employer Branding & DEI. 

I am the voice and usually the first point of contact for employees – so they must be getting a clear picture of who we are as a company and what we can offer them as well as what they can offer us. 

 My role is very people-oriented and I work cross-functionally with teams across different regions.

Why do you think it is important to celebrate International Women’s Day?

We must celebrate women across the world that are all successful. As women, we have historically faced many inequalities purely based on our gender, to continue to fight this we need to elevate/uplift women and keep speaking up about these injustices. I firmly believe in the saying “together we are stronger” and on this day it’s great to have a reminder as you never know who needed the inspiration or push. 

Do you have any female role models that inspire you in your career?

I am constantly inspired by the women around me, and the people I work with daily. I have had the opportunity at Paydock to work with strong, driven and successful women. I believe that there is something you can learn from anyone, all you have to do is observe and listen – I am certainly not afraid to ask! To name a few in the Paydock family, Suzanne Piddock – Chief of Staff and Sophie Theen – Chief Operations Officer. I work closely with Suzanne and Sophie on People and Talent matters, but also on my career pathing and coaching.

What advice would you give to females considering a career in fintech?

Go for it! Working in Fintech is exciting and fast-paced, the exposure you get in a short space of time could be equivalent to working at a corporate company for years. The possibilities are endless and to work in such an innovative and leading field – you will learn something new every day.

How is Paydock supporting our women on this journey?

Paydock supports our women by ensuring that employees are hired and paid in line with market rates/experience and actively re-benchmark to ensure existing employees are brought up, to prevent inequalities. As mentioned earlier, we have two women that sit on our executive team. I have had direct feedback from new hires that have indicated that this was heavily weighted in their decision to join Paydock. It is very motivating and reassuring to know that the possibilities are there and that there are pathways available as a woman in tech.

Orchestration provider partners with Top 50 global bank to launch one-stop platform for payments, integrations and checkout

PAYDOCK, the payments orchestration platform, has partnered with major Australian banking group The Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to launch PowerBoard, a uniquely simple solution for a merchant’s technology integrations, payments, and fraud prevention needs.

Delivering a first in Australian banking, PowerBoard will make enabling and scaling online businesses much easier by streamlining connectivity to payment services via a single platform. PowerBoard will offer traditional card payments, domestic payment methods, as well as other alternative payment methods, and services such as fraud and security features will be pre-integrated.

PowerBoard adds a single, simple to use layer that allows merchants to ‘plug in’ once, immediately reaching a range of payment methods wrapped in these further enhancements. Online merchants are now discovering orchestration-first payment strategies, yet they also want access to further innovation such as enhanced security tools, insights, and fraud-fighting services: features that require more technological sophistication to add than they typically have at their disposal. CBA PowerBoard merchants can leapfrog competitors as their needs change and more services are added to PowerBoard. Existing merchant back-end processes are spared significant disruption and the solution removes the need for data to be passed between a multitude of third parties, creating a safer risk environment.

CBA is white labelling the Paydock solution and has exclusive rights to distribute the product in Australia. Globally, Paydock is presently pursuing further significant partnership opportunities in the banking sector, notably in the UK, US, Canada, GCC, South Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong and New Zealand. The company processes millions of monthly payments through its platform for businesses across all industry sectors, including leading retailers, travel accommodation, insure-tech and not-for-profit. Paydock’s platform has generated substantial ROI gains for customers, dramatically shrinking the total cost of payments ownership, including back-office administration, processing, technical, compliance and opportunity costs.

Commenting on the PowerBoard launch, Rob Lincolne, CEO of Paydock, said:

 “Merchants today need more support than ever. As fintech gathers pace across the globe, we are delighted to partner with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia as our exclusive distributor for enabling deployment of new payment, security, and insights services to support valued merchants looking for an edge online. Untethering payments from legacy solutions and enabling choice and flexibility alongside essential fraud and security features will lift the bottom line for many merchants and ensure they can remain focused on their own businesses, while meeting the needs of their customers in a secure, flexible way.”

Mike Vacy-Lyle, Group Executive, Business Banking at CBA, added:

“PowerBoard is a significant step for CBA as we look beyond traditional banking products and services to solve pain points for our customers and provide better, integrated solutions. This is about helping our business customers create better experiences for their own customers. We are incredibly excited to be the first bank to offer such a service, and are looking forward to building out the offering in the coming months.”

PowerBoard is presently available to select business customers of CBA and a wider roll-out is scheduled for mid-2023.

About Paydock

Paydock (www.paydock.com) is an innovative enterprise-grade payments orchestration platform. Paydock assists merchants and payment service providers resolve systemic inefficiencies and risks associated with the industry’s growth, such as ever-increasing complexity, lost profit and material risk.

Clients include, financial institutions, major retailers, not-for-profits, global travel platforms, insurtech leaders.

Paydock’s ambition is to return billions in lost profit to its target markets while introducing best-in-class payments infrastructure to some of the most loved brands in the world.

CONTACT:

For media enquiries related to Paydock, please contact:

MINERVA PR

Malika Shermatova

+44 (0)7979 852604

[email protected]

By Alex Omelchenko, Chief Security Officer at Paydock

In a world of increasing numbers of systems that need to work well together, APIs form an important piece of the puzzle.

APIs are necessary. They allow online systems and products to ‘talk to each other’ in near real time and (in theory) secure ways. They speed up business, reduce costs and provide better experiences for consumers. However this interoperability of systems can also lead to risks as the front door can be unlocked, as one would expect, by API ‘keys’. However with great power comes great responsibility, and APIs are about the most powerful things on the internet today. The invisible piping behind the scenes holding it all together.

Unlike what our web browsers tell us, the biggest risks are often not related to how many magic characters are in your less-than-90-days-old-password, but are via these other computer-language digital passwords. Any developer, knowing the URL to access can usually often figure out to use these keys to go for a roam inside the house. API keys really are the keys to the kingdom.

For sure, an open, or unsecure API endpoint (such as the one that Optus had) is a deep programmatic sin, however in this world of endless integrations, de-integrations and re-integrations, it’s possible to be sympathetic to how this took place.

To eradicate the risk of this happening to your organisation we have compiled four key principles that you can review (and hopefully apply) as you consider your security posture as an organisation. We hope these lessons from our experience and knowledge will be valuable to you.

Handy Security Checklist

The following checklist forms a component of our broader internal security best-practice posture as it relates to API access, and might be most valuable to merchants who may be currently reviewing their own security posture in response to this week’s news.

 1. Authenticate Access

Endpoint authentication must be employed by default. This is the first, mandatory step. Inevitably, you will end up having some endpoints which will need to be public (though this does not mean unauthenticated). In this case, take a step further and carefully curate and maintain an allowlist of public endpoints and require authentication for all the other endpoints.

 2.  Limit Access – Time-and-Scope Limited Tokens

API Access should only be granted to a limited scope of endpoints, with limited scope of methods (read, write or update). For example, we enable merchants to create unique access tokens (similar to API keys) to our services while also defining an expiry date. Access tokens can be generated with fine-grained permissions for specific actions on particular resources while also defining white or black lists of IP addresses to be used from. These methods of restricting resource access dramatically narrows the potential attack surface.

One benefit here is that even if a developer forgets to remove a token following integration (as can happen), access will expire in the background closing out the risk. Master tokens or keys can be managed by the central security function. Many payment systems do not have this ability to manage fine-grain permissions and introduce appropriate access expiry, and so our orchestration overlay increases the robustness of any end-to-end modern payment solution.

While universal API ‘master keys’ are still around, there are better ways to structure access and rotate limited-permission tokens now.

 3.  Layered Security – 2FA and Password Recycling w. SSO/SAML

Access to systems that can be used to create access tokens should bemanaged under 2FA, password recycling and SSO/SAML regimes. A single password is not enough anymore. Utilising multiple factors of authentication is necessary. 

4.   External Penetration Testing Must Be Ongoing

It may be obvious, but the PCI-DSS certification that Paydock adheres to ensures regular external penetration tests. Whether you are required to be PCI compliant or not, we recommend ensuring external penetration tests are regularly conducted along with endpoint scanning. This will flush out any exposure not removed using the above steps.

This is not a one time exercise, as hackers are always finding new ways to exploit vulnerabilities, even as your developers may accidentally open back doors in their day to day work.

There is of course much more that could be done, but these four easy steps could materially reduce any attack surface and help you sleep at night, so you can be confident that the unfortunate experience faced by Optus will not happen to you.

Interesting, but what does this have to do with payments orchestration?

Handling sensitive or secure data correctly is the cornerstone of consumer trust and individual privacy. In the payments sector, we are aware of the same risks and orchestration provides some comfort to merchants.

The risk area we solve daily is where merchants and corporations need to ‘stitch’ these vital systems together with resources from their internal teams or third party IT contractors. The problem is when these resources head on to their next contract or assignment, they can, through human error, sometimes leave API keys hardcoded in code or possibly leave an endpoint open (possibly used for testing). It can happen. API keys can also be copy-pasted into third party messaging, email or text services, not easily picked up in a data loss or scanning systems, even if split into multiple parts. 

Prior to Paydock’s inception, we saw many merchants working with 3, 4 or more payment systems each handling secure payments data but not always protected to the extent required. Juggling PCI-DSS requirements and handling the back-end-forth shuffle of sensitive payments information across these platforms via numerous API keys for each system, under their own different security regimes is a significant load for any CIO and the complexity gets exponential as more and more services come into the modern payment mix. As the number of payment, authentication and authorisation systems increases, so do the risks and chances of a breach.

Payments orchestration provides a highly secure remedy for this inherent risk in the industry. Ensuring the entire end-to-end flow is wrapped in hardened API protocols, regularly tested by external penetration tests and can be underpinned by narrow time and scope limited access tokens, organisations can be comfortable their systems are secure. Remember, hackers will follow the path of least resistance, so a hardent posture is a significant deterrent in itself.

Payments orchestration with Paydock minimises data breach exposure exponentially, in the same way as not using a security focused overlay solution to defend third party API endpoints expands it. We’re proud to be helping merchants significantly harden their end to end payments security stance and if we can help in any way please connect.

It’s no secret that the payments industry has undergone an exponential rate of change within the last year. With an explosive growth in alternative payment methods (such as digital wallets), the rise of buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platforms and aggressive commoditisation in the processing market, this now means that merchants are rapidly drowning as they seek to remain agile yet capitalise across an increasingly fragmented and brittle payments market. This proliferation of vendors has resulted in a significant commoditisation in the payments market, thus creating a substantial bottom line problem for merchants worldwide as per a market research indicating that many major brands typically leave 3-4% of profit on the table. 

Many major brands typically leave 3-4% of profit on the table

Lots of businesses are known to stick with a single vendor strategy only for them to realise that something was missed. Whether it be compliance, cost or strategic reasons…We all know that in the fintech world, just because a vendor may have multiple offerings, it is rare that only one does everything ever required both now and in the future.

Single vendor strategies are no longer defensible

Rapid innovations in the payments industry are driving a steep change in how consumers are paying and merchants are needing to stay agile and ensure they are capitalising on the best the market has to offer.  Connecting to newer and evolving vendors such as AfterPay and ApplePay are key to retaining customers in today’s landscape, but at what cost? Businesses are constantly exhausting their resource, whereby they are changing their vendors on a regular basis or left with very little option to work with the limitations that the single vendor has. This has the potential to leave a lot of profit on the table, or using “wasted money” on technical resource such as maintaining an in-house development team that will ‘patch’ over the problems. 

Given the complexities of the payments market today and expeditious pace of change in customer demand, it’s no longer feasible for merchants to commit to a single-vendor strategy. Instead, they must adopt a multi-vendor approach that enables them to regain control of their money whilst future proofing all aspects of the business. 

How to fix the Single Vendor problem

The solution to this is an exciting yet relatively recent market segment, payments orchestration. Payments orchestration enables merchants to rapidly consume and absorb all that the market has to offer without compromising their pockets and coming up short. 

By defaulting to an orchestration-first payments strategy with Paydock, merchants are able to plug in multiple vendors through a simple, uniformed platform whilst satisfying mandatory technical, compliance, security and other functional requirements and above all else, it  eliminates both the complexity and traditional costs. 

Why Orchestration is the definitive solution

Paydock diffuses the pain points that are typically present within a single vendor strategy and harmonises merchants payments strategies with the following benefits:

1. Unlimited Connections: With Paydock, merchants can offer greater flexibility to their customers and are able to route payments to unlimited gateways regardless of any variables holding them back, such as currency, payment method, card scheme etc. 
2. Data Visibility: Orchestration gives merchants a unique lens on payments across all channels on a single dashboard. They are also able to gain fresh clarity on all consumer activity across these channels and provide payment preferences based on behaviour through data collected within Paydock. 
3. No Maintenance: Paydock removes the headache for Merchants with the upkeep and maintenance of the gateways and takes full control of all the technical configuration, leaving merchants to focus free on the core business. 
4. Future-proofed: Paydock’s sustainable competitive advantage is the ability to future-proof customers by capitalising (rather than suffering) from the increasing rate of fragmentation and giving them the confidence to move freely with new entrants and trends within the changing landscape. 

The single vendor era is officially outdated and no longer working, orchestration is the definitive solution redefining payments experiences and a no brainer for all parties involved whether that be for merchants, customers or vendors. 

By adopting an orchestration approach with Paydock, this will not ‘rock the boat’ with your current relationships with partners and vendors but instead will seamlessly integrate into your payments solution whilst being completely agnostic. 

Find out more

If you’re looking to set yourself free from the single vendor approach or you want to find out more about orchestration-first strategy with Paydock, get in touch with one of our experts at [email protected] 

Payments orchestration as a concept may not be new but its role within the global payments ecosystem is becoming increasingly crucial as merchants try to keep up with an ocean of payments options. Powered by rapidly changing consumer demands, the rise of ecommerce and a race to the bottom in transaction fees, orchestration is about to hit prime time. 

While giving options to customers may be the way forward for merchants looking to increase sales and make the most of ecommerce, the downside is that it essentially creates a headache from logistical, integration, efficiency, and cost point of view. 

We outline the top reasons why merchants should seriously consider payments orchestration in order to stay in the game while making the most of the ecommerce opportunities.

1. Scale faster and serve a global audience

Digitisation and ecommerce are globalising many businesses, however, optimising a payments strategy globally on a single payment gateway is almost impossible. 

Through payments orchestration, merchants can up their game on a global scale by being able to integrate various payment providers and orchestrate the entire transaction process from end to end, starting from checkout to processing, acceptance, reconciliation, recording and reporting. 

From a cross-border point of view in particular, it means that merchants can be smart with routing and integrate the right mix of regional and global payment providers to optimise acceptance rates and save costs. 

Paydock’s payments orchestration platform enables merchants to plug in unlimited gateways globally and yet remain in total control.

Adding a new payments service through Paydock’s platform takes seconds, merchants can engage a broader consumer base and effortlessly expand to new geographies and markets – all the while knowing that they are in charge of the whole process. Paydock’s payment orchestration service can support hundreds of processors around the world through a single API.

2. Fail proof and highly resilient payments ecosystems – where things always go your way

Payments orchestration can also facilitate a better failover process for transactions by enabling the system to automatically and intelligently reroute to the next best alternative payment method in the event of failed transaction and thus secure a better chance of transaction success rate. 

Since adopting an orchestration-first approach, Paydock has recorded reductions in administration and technical costs by as much as 70% when using our platform.

Not only does this reduce cost per payment that a merchant has to bear, it also ensures that no sale is lost and customers remain satisfied, making payments orchestration a very appealing ROI proposition for merchants. 

For example, Paydock’s real-time routing engine enables merchants to build a suite of configurable routes in an “if-this-then-that” arrangement, removing the need for an IT project full of anxiety and additional cost. So not only does it make sense to merchants thinking ahead, it also has a real and instant bottom-line impact. 

Add to this the ability of a merchant to mitigate risks associated with payment processor downtimes – something that can easily happen in the complex payments world!

3. Fraud protection

Just as merchants are looking to capitalise on the rise of ecommerce, fraudsters are hard at work too. According to Finder, in the first half of 2020, there was a reported loss of almost £30m attributed to online shopping and auction fraud. With this number expected to continue to grow and businesses constantly coming under attack, risk is increasing and fraud protection has become a priority focus for merchants who seek to harden their security posture. 

“In the first half of 2020, there was a reported loss of almost £30m attributed to online shopping and auction fraud”

Without payments orchestration, the transactional data is spread over multiple gateways and payment providers, therefore it is naturally hard to have insight into or indeed analyse data, making fraud even harder to detect.  Well, guess what? Risk is one of the areas where payments orchestration has a tremendous value and could particularly be effective against fraudsters too, but aggregating and processing all data in one place, giving you real-time visibility and analytics at your fingertips. 

And while on the subject of visibility, check out Paydock’s Audit Tool which gives auditable visibility of all activity in real time across the Paydock ecosystem. This allows merchants to monitor all gateways, users and updates all within the Paydock network. This is available in Paydock’s multi-user engine, so merchants can track actions of their staff, external developers and third party integrations. 

4. Futureproof

An increasing need and therefore demand for payments orchestration, already being used across numerous industries, is indeed an indication that it is here to stay, so merchants need to think long term. While there are a myriad of initiatives that offer a temporary fix and lift in revenues and profitability, payments orchestration is really all about the bigger picture – it is about enabling businesses to future proof themselves by allowing them to plan, prepare and adapt to the rapidly changing payments landscape and whatever it may bring next. 

Payments orchestration is a scalable, robust and cost-effective solution to end-to-end payment processing, with easy access to continuously growing payment methods and alternatives, which will be a commercially significant aspect for merchants and therefore crucial for their success.

5. Improve customer journey and conversion rates

This is probably the most critical benefit of payments orchestration as by simplifying the entire process it removes many obstacles to successful completion of a transaction, while flexibility and a choice of payment methods help merchants meet customer preferences and expectations leading to improved conversion rates. According to 451 Research, 78% of consumers say that if their preferred payment method isn’t accepted, they are less likely to shop with that business in the future.

“78% of consumers say that if their preferred payment method isn’t accepted, they are less likely to shop with that business in the future.”

The checkout experience is probably the most debated area for many merchants with many thousands of pounds and hours spent on designing, re-designing, and testing. The real beauty and advantage of payments orchestration is that it completely removes these complexities and enables merchants to offer a smoother journey to their customers by giving them the payment methods and options regardless of where they are. 

Payments orchestration is truly a no-brainer for merchants to adopt worldwide.

By introducing an orchestration-first strategy as a default, merchants are able to rapidly consume and capitalise on all the market has to offer without any of the traditional costs. With the ability to future-proof, scale faster whilst reducing compliance creep, payments orchestration is truly a no-brainer for merchants to adopt worldwide.

To find out how Paydock can help pocket more for your business, speak to one of our friendly team today by dropping us a line to [email protected] 

Manage payments for partners, vendors and customers.

• Create and manage sub-merchant accounts
• Monitor activity from all connected merchants via one centralised dashboard (irrespective of payment channel)
• Prevent fraud and increase security by assigning smart Risk Profiles to your Sub Merchants
• Increase your brand value by offering Paydock Master Merchant via our fully branded white-label experience for you and your subsidiaries, with access to all Paydock features

From social distancing to remote working practices, businesses today have to adapt and accelerate digitally more than ever before, meaning that focus on efficiency and advanced technologies that can deliver this seamlessly is now more imperative than ever. 

As part of our commitment to merchants and our customers to make the management of payments as easy as possible we work tirelessly to continue to drive innovation and bring products and features that add value to our customers bottom lines.

The Master Merchant Platform is the latest addition to the rich features and benefits we already offer. 

So… how will Paydock Master Merchant benefit your organisation? Here are some of the top reasons:

Stay in control with Risk Profiles 

In a year where cybersecurity has been one of the major concerns and security breaches have been at their highest, the transparency aspect of the Master Merchant platform is of particular importance. The Risk Profile feature, allows Master Merchants to assign risk profiles with different sets of risk rules enabling you to separate the low-risk transactions from the high risk ones and dynamically block or hold for review! You can rest assured you have the maximum security possible. 

Pro tip: Combine Paydock Risk Profiles with our native service integrations with anti-fraud vendors such as Accertify for next-level payments resilience and security.

Audit Tool and Transactions 

We know in any business, detailed reporting is fundamental for decision-making and putting you on the path to success. We’ve further simplified the reporting and reconciliation process with our in-house audit tool. Access group-wide processing data and review Sub Merchant transactions and track API and dashboard activities and actions across your entire payments network (“Audit” page).

Efficient Merchant Support

Focus on core business through our nifty ‘Login-as..’ feature. We’ve made it easy for all Master Merchants to gain access to Sub-Merchants accounts with the ‘Login As’ feature. In just one click from the dashboard, privileged Master Merchant users can gain access to and see data and settings from the Sub-Merchant’s accounts, radically compressing support time and effort. 

Merchant support has never been easier.

Shared Resources and Vault Group 

For a global merchant, creating highly secure yet seamless checkout experiences is critical to a bottom line. For too long this has meant customers have had to re-enter payment details if your network involved more than a single processor.

Paydock has solved this problem through our Shared Vault Service (SVS). SVS enables innovative and PCI DSS compliant payment experiences to be created in minutes that work across any and all payment processors supported by Paydock.

Last but not least…

Apply your own branding with a fully configurable white label experience.

Whitelabel  for total brand control

Build value into your brand and provide a sense of security to your stakeholders through the Paydock white-label capabilities. Master Merchants can apply their own branding directly from the Paydock dashboard and modify brand name, buttons, links, colours, logos, background images and references to their web resources. Changes are instantly reflected across your entire network of the Sub-Merchants ensuring the brand experience is coherent, consistent and aligned with your organisation.

To find out more about our new Master Merchant platform please click here or speak to one of our experts at [email protected] 

You can also watch an explainer video here

You get a hit on your e-commerce store, they browse around your site and find an item they like.

They have filled their online shopping cart and are ready to purchase.

They get ready to pay… and find no PayPal or AMEX.

They get frustrated and leave.

Does this sound familiar?

It’s the story of “cart abandonment”. Two words that every e-commerce retailer hates and sees over $159.6 billion of global online sales at risk from the modern customer not finding exactly what they want and leaving – most likely to competitors. In the digital age where attention span is a valuable commodity, e-commerce retailers and merchants who invest in reducing checkout friction win big.

From a study conducted by YouGov, a UK-based international market research firm, it was found that:

“40% of participants said they would feel more comfortable buying from a merchant that offers multiple payment methods” – YouGov

Digital wallet options are on the rise with 67.6% of top online merchants offering PayPal and global non-cash transactions increasing 8% year on year. So many merchants are confused on how to keep up and are turning to payment platforms like Paydock to help them trial and adopt new payment methods and gateways quickly and easily.

Imagine what a 1% increase in conversion could do to your bottom line.

Why Paydock?

Paydock is a payments platform built to help merchants and e-commerce retailers increase their conversions and reduce internal process management. It enables merchants to connect multiple payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, Braintree and Westpac PayWay in seconds and keeps your business on your toes with emerging payment methods. Contact Paydock here to speak to a payments expert.

We’re putting even more power back in the merchants’ hand with our PayPal Express Checkout integration. Merchants on Paydock and using PayPal as their payment gateway can now use PayPal Express Checkout as an integrated service for smoother consumer purchasing experiences.

Merchant now have the power to deliver seamless checkout experiences and create new revenue all the while still enjoying the power to flexibly set up recurring billing, retain customer data for easy reconciliation and tokenise their customers’ financial information.

Learn more about PayPal’s Express Checkout Service

For assistance on how to take advantage of this feature in Paydock, please contact one of our consultants on [email protected], +61 2 8218 2141 or review our documentation.

Love,

The Paydock Team

If you could use one word to describe dealing with payment gateways what would it be?

A cornerstone of doing business online, and taking payments through web apps, websites, or now even in-store, is having the right infrastructure to support your business. Key to this is having a payment gateway.

Payment gateways are a little like traffic signals. When they’re working they work really well and help things go smoothly. When they’re problematic, all sorts of trouble can occur. Having the right setup for online payments that will keep working when and how you need it to, makes a world of difference.

To better understand the relationship between businesses and their payment gateways we conducted the 2015 Payment Gateway Survey. We have had a hunch for some time that people ordinary business owners and workers find online payments a troublesome task. The hunch told us that things were not as simple as the marketing tells us it is.

From a business perspective, there’s something about taking payments online that feels… hard.

Grab the white paper now, we interviewed a wide range of people from developers, nonprofits and industry to reveal the top payment gateways they used, how businesses feel about dealing with them, and what they would like to see changed.

Download the whitepaper now

‘If you could use one word to describe dealing with payment gateways what would it be?’

For the last decade the web has radically changed the way we live. Paper bills are almost a novelty, picking up a parcel at a ‘parcel locker’ because we do so much shopping online is now a thing.

Large and small businesses are relying more and more on transactions conducted over the Internet.

However from a business perspective, there’s something about taking payments online that feels… hard. Our experience speaking with business owners and members of the technology world told us that this was true.

As a part of our recent 2015 Payment Gateway Survey we asked people to describe dealing with their payment gateway in one word.

Most responded with negativity, using words such as:

• Frustrating
• Painful
• Paperwork
• Necessary
• Time-consuming
• Friction
• Annoying
• Confusing
• Cumbersome
• Complex

The overall sense that we took from this was that engagement with payment gateways as a labour intensive task that could prove confusing, complex, and yet was something they were unable to avoid due to its necessity.

This backed up our understanding of businesses over the last decade, and confirmed that there is still a need to improve upon the existing customer experience of a fundamental part of our modern economy.

Do you feel like this is something you have experienced? Some respondents came back to us and said it was painless, or routine. We’d love to hear your feedback. Have you switched gateways and found one easier than the other? Tell us your story in the comments below.

So you’ve decided to move to a new credit card processor. You think to yourself it won’t be a problem, because with today’s technology you should be able to move any information that’s yours. It’s yours right?

It’s not always in the front of your mind, but consider the following scenario.

“If you want to leave Authorize.net… they will put up a fight when you ask for your data. They will claim they can’t do it or at best they will say it costs anywhere from $500-$1500 to export the data into a CSV file for you.”
Robert Oswald, on Quora.com
Authorize.net aren’t the only processor to squeeze you when it comes to your own data. One of the pitfalls of going with a payment gateway or credit card processor, is not only having to pay, but that you may not even be able to get your data at all.

Let me present to you a different way of thinking about it.

If instead of building a connection to your credit card processor and hoping they give you your data when you want it, why not get someone to securely keep the data for you? That way when you switch payment gateways, your data isn’t lost – and it’s not at the whim of a business that only wants you for themselves.

Build with Paydock, and keep your customer data independent of your credit card processor. Not only does Paydock make it easier for you to take payments, but your customer data changes with you when you change too.