Alessandro Bocca
CEO, Axerve
Payment orchestration integrates multiple payment providers onto one platform, making it easier for retailers to manage online transactions and increase their conversion rates.
Ultimately, all retailers want to deliver a hassle-free buying experience for their customers, thereby reducing the number of failed payment transactions they experience and increasing their sales. However, making this happen is often easier said than done says, Alessandro Bocca, CEO of Axerve, Italy-based payments hub that has developed a platform for orchestrating payments across Europe and worldwide– and for a number of reasons.
A solution for complex online payments
“Online transactions have increased in complexity over the years,” Bocca explains. “The multiple steps needed to complete a card payment have become a challenge — just take customer authentication regulations, for instance — which increases the risk of payment declines, failed authorisations and increased fees.” Not to mention the fact that ecommerce customers are global so could be ordering from anywhere, and in any currency. To further complicate the picture, merchants often use multiple tools and payment platforms, which means their online payment systems are difficult to manage and it is hard to get meaningful insights.
The solution to these challenges is new easy-to-use technology which integrates different payment service providers on a single platform. Known as ‘payment orchestration‘, it makes selling online and cross-border transactions easier by offering the right payment options for every country and gives merchants more independence from payment service providers.
Payment orchestration connects merchants to the entire payment ecosystem.
Simple way to manage ecommerce payments
“Payment orchestration connects merchants to the entire payment ecosystem,” explains Bocca. “It’s flexible, so they can re-route to the best performing (or most cost-effective) provider at the time of purchase and therefore increase their retail conversion rates. For example, for transactions made in GBP, a merchant can use payment provider X. For transactions made in Euros, they can use payment provider Y and so on.”
“The UK is a mature market for payment cards and payment service providers,” notes Bocca. So, for UK retailers — and particularly ones with customers in different international markets — orchestration offers real opportunities for higher conversion rates and lower fees. And because payment processes from multiple transactions are managed via a single platform, it optimises and defragments payment systems, offering automatic reconciliation of finances and better data visibility with immediate holistic reporting.
Awareness of payment orchestration
‘Payment orchestration‘ is currently generating something of a buzz in certain retail circles — although, generally, Bocca thinks that awareness of the solution is still low. That might change, however. “The need for a platform like this was recognised years ago, but creating it took time,” he admits. “So, for years, payment orchestration was just a promise. Now it’s a reality.”