CASE STUDY: GLOBAL ACQUIRING FOR RUSSIANTRAINS™

The upcoming 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia™, spread out across 12 stadiums in 11 Russian cities, offers a chance for leading travel platforms to demonstrate the capabilities of their online booking systems. As a major sporting event, the World Cup is expected to attract over 1.5 million foreign tourists between June 14 – July 15, most of whom will opt for intercity transportation via the rail network.

Russiantrains™ (part of Firebird Tours) has organised travel with Russian Railways since 1998, launching their online reservation platform in 2007. The company’s services are not limited to the Russian Federation, however, with subsidiaries Rail.Ninja and Russiantraintickets.com selling tickets to thousands of passengers from 100+ countries worldwide.

Partnering with payment service provider ECOMMPAY, Russiantrains™ is confident of its abilities to provide a quality service to visiting football fans, as well as to all international customers booking train tickets via their website.

The company’s collaboration with ECOMMPAY began in 2017, when Firebird Tours began exploring methods to cut out the payment page redirect by integrating via an API. Working closely with ECOMMPAY’s Head of Information Security, the subsidiary projects of Firebird Tours (Rail.Ninja and Russiantraintickets.com) underwent a technical consultation on how to build, maintain, and monitor a secure network, as well as on how to protect cardholder data.

Companies wishing to capture sensitive customer data must become PCI DSS compliant. Offering advice on the mandatory components of this certification, including vulnerability management programs, access control measures, and network testing, ECOMMPAY assisted Rail.Ninja and Russiantraintickets.com in improving security standards to obtain PCI DSS certification. The seamless customer experience facilitated via an API increased customer conversion by over 80%.

Firebird Tours has also enjoyed increased revenues resulting from the bespoke payment solution engineered exclusively for the ticket operator, which incorporates direct global acquiring, proprietary risk management, and 24/7 support from a dedicated account manager. After initiating the partnership with ECOMMPAY, payment acceptance increased by 35% in 2018, with the highest traffic volume originating from the United States, the European Union, and Latin America.

Targeted risk management technologies, such as the proprietary FraudStop system and its customisable filters, ensure that fraudulent activity is kept to a minimum. ECOMMPAY’s experienced risk analysts have not only configured FraudStop’s settings to automatically detect potentially fraudulent transactions, but also offer manual monitoring to ensure a comprehensive coverage.

Andrey Belyaev, Head of Payment Systems & Fraud at Firebird Tours, had the following to say about ECOMMPAY’s contribution to the company’s ongoing success:

“ECOMMPAY immediately demonstrated an individual approach, taking into account each of our requirements and customising their products accordingly. We have combined our anti-fraud experience with knowledge from our colleagues at ECOMMPAY and the outcome of this synergy demonstrated an excellent result. FraudStop has been particularly effective, saving us significant sums annually and safeguarding our reputation. We’re also very happy with the response rate of our client manager, who is ready to offer tailored recommendations whenever requested, not only during working hours. The manager also helps to quickly solve a wide range of tasks that are hidden to the client but help us to be more efficient. Recognising the positive impact ECOMMPAY has had on the conversion rate and revenues of our subsidiary projects, Russiantraintickets.com and Rail.Ninja, we decided to not only move our main project, Russiantrains™, to their payment gateway, but also intend to integrate our other travel projects in the near future.”