Creative payment solutions through customization

PSPs and financial institutions often have needs that are unique to their business. These needs that go unaddressed can turn into pain-points, and revenue reduction. It is extremely important for payment platform providers to provide flexibility, and to have the adaptation capabilities required to determine and customize creative solutions. The team at Payneteasy, shares three case studies in which they served as that flexibility layer that led to the overcoming of obstacles and henceforth heightened profitability.

Money transfer based solution for payment acceptance

Background: One of our partners, a large PSP, was working with Visa on the Draw event took place in December 2017. Ambassadors and high ranking government officials were invited to the event. Since Visa was an official partner, they were responsible for the sale and payment processing of souvenirs during the event.

The challenge: The challenge was related to the point that according to the agreement all the souvenirs could be bought only via Visa cards so this PSP needed a way to organize souvenir purchases through local acquirers via Visa and MasterCard credit cards that were issues by banks from all over the world. Since Draw Event guests were expected to attend from all over the world, refusing participants from making purchases from MasterCard during the event was not an option.

They turned to Payneteasy in order to see how to solve this challenge.

The Payneteasy solution

Together with colleagues we developed several ways to solve this problem that were presented by SBC to Visa representatives. The best solution was chosen - to use MasterCard MoneySend technologies to ensure that payment for souvenirs could be accepted from any card, no matter where the issuing bank was. The way this was done was by making a transfer operation from MasterCard cards to prepaid Visa cards, and to then make the purchase via POS terminal.

1. A mobile device interface was developed over the course of a single week. The interface would be used by Visa representatives as they helped guests purchase souvenirs through a tablet device.

This device was used for transfer payments from MasterCard cards to prepaid Visa cards. However, international transfers between cards issued by different payment systems could lead to the low approval ratio.

2. To prevent this from happening, and to ensure that approval ratios would be maximized, we added an additional step to the payment scheme whereby all transfers made from international MasterCard credit cards would first be received on the local cards, and only following approval, it would go through to the Visa prepaid cards which were also issued by a local bank.

3. In addition to setting up a new payment scheme, Payneteasy was able to set up a system that connected to the Mastercard API in order to check the currency and rates available on each card. After a response was received from the system, the money was withdrawn from the card in the desired currency. At the same time this transaction took place, the prepaid Visa card would be loaded with the precise amount needed in the currency in which the souvenirs were sold.

4. On the final stage, prepaid Visa cards were used for sales operation via POS terminals.

As a result, we provided a creative solution to help SBC technologies meet the needs of its partners. The event had been judged successful, Visa did not violate their partner agreement, and provide the guests of the event with an opportunity bo buy souvenirs regardless the card type they had.

Finding the path to high acceptance rates

Background: The payment processing world continually seeks to increase approval ratio since this is one of the most critical elements for merchants (and a driving factor for merchants in selecting one solution over another). When approval ratios suffer, and payments are declined, payment providers need to find an alternative way to help merchants process payments or risk a decline in revenue and overall reputation.

The challenge: We were approached by a large PSP looking to improve acceptance ratio and help their merchants increase revenue. To tackle this problem, we realized that we first needed examine the declined transactions in order to try and understand what happened, as well as to explore alternative payment methods that could be offered instead.

The solution: After discussing the unique needs of the PSP, it was realized that it is needed to provide a solution that would ensure the customer could proceed with the transaction with ease, or that the customer was offered alternative payment methods in the event that the initial payment method did not work and one of these methods could guarantee that a customer will proceed his payment.

Ultimately, the solution devised was to change the payment flow in the following way:

1. In the event of a decline, resulted from the rules and restriction of the clients’ card, a prepaid virtual card was suggested for use of payment.

2. To issue a virtual card that would brought an approval status the system analyzed decline reasons and depending on the result made a request for issuing to one of the virtual cards providers.

3. The client consent is given for this transaction. Following issue of the prepaid card, the client is then able to make the transaction and receive an approved status for the purchase.

Thus, through the use of three sale operations, Payneteasy was able to provide the PSP and their clients with a seamless payment flow.

4. In the event that the transaction decline was not the result of the specific card restrictions, and the transaction was unsuccessful due to the complexity of the payment flow (i.e bank transfer or too much information), then the solution Payneteasy devised was to initiate a new transaction, pause the transaction, and then pass the information to a call center. By using a call center to proceed with the transaction and complete the payment via other alternative payment methods, the PSP was able to increase acceptance ratio and transaction made.

It should be noted that this solution is particularly beneficial for forex and gaming industries.

Restructuring payment flows

The third case was quite a simple one and solved for one of our PSPs. They work closely with merchants who wanted to use P2P transfers as the main payment method for their customers. This is cheaper, more useful and more importantly, P2P transfer are a quasi-cash operation, so they will not experience any chargebacks.

However, for cases when the client can’t use his card for a P2P transfer because of specific restrictions, they’d like to provide a customer with a classic way to pay via e-com transaction.

As a result, this payment flow was presented:

1. First step, a customer fills in his card data and makes a transfer to the merchant card.

2. If there are any restrictions or declines related with the type of operation, the system passes the transaction to the next step – sale operation. Meanwhile, a customer doesn’t have to fill in his data twice, the system uses the same data for the sales operation.

With this scheme, a merchant gets the preferable way to get money for his services, and at the same time, stays with a high approval ratio by providing another option to pay.

Each business is different, and with every difference comes new challenges and obstacles that only out-of-the-box thinking can overcome. In each of the described cases, flexibility and customization played an intricate role in the success of maximizing the client's profitability.