How to build your payment infrastructure

Payneteasy discuss their solutions for banks and fintechs that need to build their payment infrastructures at speed.


What are the main challenges facing fintech startups building their payment infrastructures?

There are several challenges that Fintech startups face when building their payment infrastructure, the first being complying with strict regulatory requirements that differ throughout jurisdictions. The basic compliance they should meet is PCI DSS. The price for being PCI DSS certified ranges from 10 000% to millions of dollars depending on certain criteria, such as the amount of transactions planned for processing, business size, and other conditions. Regardless, it can present a serious investment that can be both costly and time consuming, as you would need a team of payment specialists dedicated to your certification and compliance project.

Another serious challenge that Fintech companies face is staying on top of the ever-changing technology trends and new solutions. Fintech is very competitive, and if you can’t offer people what the next guy is offering, you will most likely lose your audience. Fintech companies need to be ultra-aware of the problems that people face, and to find an efficient and elegane solution for them. This requires ongoing development, flexibility, and integration capabilities, that many fintech companies are not prepared for, not financially nor operatively.

How can startups meet these challenges in order scale up effectively?

The quick and cost-effective approach to overcoming these challenges is for them to turn to a white label solution that would spare them having to invest resources in their own infrastructure. However, other challenges arise with big, global payment platforms when flexibility is in need. Upon specific payment needs that they don’t automatically have, integration and customization turn into lengthy and expensive processes.

The alternative to standard white label solutions is to go straight to a technology platform provider, that performs all of their development in-house Their infrastructure is designed for smooth and quick customization and integrations, so many more payment opportunities are accessible.

For example, our partner, Cassby, is a Russian online-cashier company that was looking for the perfect solution for card acceptance. At first, Cassby tried to build their own payment solution and quickly understood that this was not the reasonable choice for their business that they wanted launched fast. They went to other companies to try to white label the solution, but their integration capabilities were limited and they weren’t able to brand it as their own.

Finally, they understood that Payneteasy was their right choice, and received the fast and easy ability to accept credit cards via mPOS terminals. With our mPOS and POS SDK solution, they could easily integrate with other 3rd party systems and applications, without losing their brand at the forefront. As a result, Cassby spared themselves huge investments, precious time, and gained the expertise and know-how from experienced professionals.

In addition to providing solutions for start-ups, you also work with banks. What problems do larger banks face in developing their payment solutions?

Banks are usually not at the forefront of technological evolutions. They are often left behind, with infrastructure that is outdated and often irrelevant in terms of industry demands. Any changes, customizations, or integrations that they want to perform require months of project development and large investments. Chris Skinner, rated one of the top 40 most influential people in Fintech said it best in the Wall Street Journal, “Financial institutions have appointed chief digital officers, allocated budgets and started projects to develop innovative banking services, but what is really needed is core cultural change from the top down and few banks are looking at really changing how their organization thinks and operates.”

We’ve found this to be very true, and with our experience financial institutions that have decided to change their way of thinking to one that supports dynamic technological advancements and trends, have managed to highly improve their ranking and popularity. They can adapt much more simply than they think, by partnering with a technology partner that has the flexibility layer they need for their clients and for their existing infrastructure.

Post-Open Banking & PSD2, fintechs and challengers are moving to offer a wealth of financial services to customers. In the race to develop the best payment technology, are the banks or fintech startups better poised to succeed in this new era?

Fintech companies have the advantage, because technology is already a priority for them, and they are ever-searching for problems to solve in the present and the future. Banks are more conservative and traditional, and their current infrastructure wasn’t designed with changes in mind, yet they have the stability and reliability that has earned them loyal clients.

I believe that the existing industry challenges lead to very interesting industry, rich with qualitative and competitive products. In this paradigm the ability to cooperate, no matter who you’re trying cooperating with – bank, fintech or technology provider – will be the most valuable.

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