The Benefits of an End to End Payment Solution
Guest Post: Marc Docherty Head of UK Acquiring, Ingenico Enterprise Retail
Payments processing can be a minefield, especially for merchants that are new to dealing with its complex systems and terminologies. Historically, they’d have to get to grips with every aspect of the system, whether that’s the pad itself, gateways, acquiring or processing, and source suppliers for each aspect of the chain.
Many merchants of all sizes, particularly those operating a smaller business, are hard pushed for time and resources as they focus on ensuring their business not only survives, but thrives. So, how can they take the hassle out of managing payments processing, making it run more effectively, efficiently, and securely, while offering a better user experience for their customers? Here, I’ll explain how.
Understanding how payments processing works
All transactions, whether online or instore, might take only seconds to complete, but behind the scenes there are many different players working to make sure the payment is made swiftly, correctly, and securely. This includes a payment gateway, the acquirer, the issuer, and the card network, as well as the retailer themselves. In theory, the payment should pass from each party without the customer ever noticing.
What’s more, merchants must be sure that not only has the payment been processed, but the money has been sent to their bank account. But with a multitude of different providers at each stage, this can be prone to errors or additional time added to the transaction, leaving the customer with a poor experience and less likely to return for repeat sales.
End-to-end payments processing
Many providers profess to offer full-service end-to-end payment capabilities but few can actually achieve it. The benefit of those vendors that have these capabilities is that for merchants, they get the value from all the revolutionary technologies, from enhanced profitability, security control and transparency, as well as improved service for their customers.
Acquirers that can provide PIN Entry Device (PED) devices, along with a centralised payment gateway that will handle omnichannel payment transactions from the point of sale (PoS) to the transaction acquirer. Operated as a managed service, this will significantly optimise costs for the merchant by centralising transactions, simplifying installations, maintenance and international updates, in addition to the guaranteed availability of the entire system.
Along with technology such as Ingenico’s state of the art Smart Acquiring Solution, this results in an end-to-end seamless payment solution with simplified integration and certification processing, along with eased reconciliation, and fast settlement for merchants.
Multiplication of payment methods requires a partner able also to process and centralise all these payment methods into the same platform and provide clear monitoring. It’s for this reason that the solution provides not only acceptance but also payments processing.
As the entire solution is housed under one roof, all merchant payment needs can be serviced, providing one expert point of contact, making the process as seamless as possible. This adds to a positive experience for the customer. The platform scales automatically, enabling merchants to deal with large card volumes at any given time. What’s more, customers will benefit from uninterrupted uptime, as a result of a reliable payment gateway with no planned maintenance or downtime.
By offering such advanced payments systems, vendors such as ourselves can help merchants by making their processes easier and more accessible with a fully integrated, end-to-end payment solution. With security a bigger concern than ever before, this must be integrated into the technology seamlessly so as to avoid negatively affecting the customer journey while respecting its state-of-the-art security process. By simplifying the process, this will result in a faster, secure, and seamless payments process.
Making Payments a Priority
When you offer a service to merchants, you aim to empower them to offer the best service they can to their customers. For us it is making the payments process as simple and scalable for both. Therefore, our full-service solution is a modular offering that addresses merchants needs for a more unified experience, including acceptance, payment gateway and acquiring. This allows businesses to process all transactions whatever the channel, reduce risk and fraud, increase sales and conversion rates, and improve the user experience.
That’s why, instead of trying to do it all themselves, merchants should make it a top priority to partner with a competitive acquiring provider who can do it for them. If the process you provide gives customers the convenience and speed they’re looking for, they are more likely to turn into repeat customers because they’ve had a good experience with your business before, whether that’s in-store or online.
For merchants, having full visibility over the payments process will empower them to manage costs effectively, thereby increasing room for profit.
To learn more about Ingenico Enterprise Retail, visit www.ingenico.co.uk/omnichannel.
