As merchant services industry is rapidly moving forward, new payment gateway solutions are emerging. These new solutions often offer new functionality. They are more flexible and capable of satisfying the new needs of merchants and resellers/ISO/Payment Facilitators.
The purpose of this article is to outline the main signs, indicating, that it might be appropriate for you to switch your current payment gateway solution to a new one. While some of these signs are relevant for all merchant services industry players, others apply to specific groups, such as merchants or intermediary entities (ISO and payment facilitators).
When you should search for an alternative payment processing platform
Let us review some of the signs, indicating that it is time to search for an alternative payment processing platform.
- Processing costs and fees – your cost of processing is too high and the processing fees are being re-adjusted even though your volume has significantly grown. You may have started with small processing volumes, but now your volumes are much higher, so your current transaction processing cost is significant, because the fees you are paying are the same as before. If you are not able to re-negotiate transaction pricing with your current processor, then you should look for alternatives.
- Funding delays – it takes too much time to get the funds you are entitled to. The funds are arbitrarily frozen and delayed, while you have a good processing history, there are no problems associated with your account and no particular reasons for suspicion and funding delays. If you are unable to resolve the issue with your current processing partner (i.e., your processor cannot provide a suitable solution), then, perhaps, it is time to look for a new one.
- Lack of multi-currency support – you need to accept payments in multiple currencies, but your current payment platform does not support multi-currency payment processing. While you can use a different payment platform to handle additional currencies, it might also make sense to find an alternative payment gateway solution that will handle everything with one interface (from one entry point).
- Lack of the necessary features – when you have started, your processor had a satisfying feature set, but since you started using the existing solution, your needs have changed. Now there are certain features, that you need, that are not available within your current payment processing platform. For example, traditionally, you worked with e-commerce transactions, but now you would like to handle card-present payments as well. You need to work with payment terminals and offer new solutions to your customers, but your payment gateway provider is unable to support the new technology. Or, perhaps, you would like to enroll in 3D secure program, in order to improve transaction security, but your provider does not support the respective features.
- Reporting issues – reporting is not customizable enough. I.e., the reports are not presentable in the format that you need. There are no ways to export raw data in a format, allowing you to manipulate it. Some of the data, you would like to be able to see, such as details of processing costs is not available, etc. Perhaps, as a result of unclear reporting procedures, you experience problems while trying to reconcile your deposits properly.
- Integration inconvenience – it is possible, that the technology, offered by your payment service provider, is not the most modern (up-to-date) one. While you managed the initial integration, supporting it imposes unnecessary costs on you. You might consider looking for an easier and more natural solution.
- Limited branding functionality – you would like to present payment processing interface to your customers under your own brand. However, your current payment platform does not allow you to do that. As a result, lack of required branding functions limits your marketing capability and hampers your relationships with your customer base.
- Merchant onboarding problems – as we have explained in our previous article, merchant onboarding problems are extremely relevant for payment facilitators and ISOs. More and more systems today offer real-time merchant onboarding and provisioning, which is a critical feature. It becomes one of the driving factors of competitive advantage in the merchant services industry. You may be used to submitting paperwork manually and waiting for a couple of days for the MIDs do get issued. However, your customers are demanding a more streamlined process. If your current payment gateway solution is unable to accommodate it, you may consider some additional or alternative options.
Conclusion
If some of the listed issues resonate with the pinpoints, that you have with your current payment processor, perhaps, you should consider some changes to the existing payment gateway solution, or even switching to a new one.
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