How Payment Processors Can Go To Market Faster with Platform Technology

The landscape of payments is like participating in a high-octane race. For payment processors, the rapid emergence of new technologies and demands from customers forces them to shift gears and speed up their innovation processes. Platform technology acts as the ultimate pit crew, providing a powerful engine to supercharge the go-to-market times (GTMs) of payment processors. This is where it comes into play.

A bottleneck on the innovation highway is the traditional general-purpose vehicles. Traditionally, the process of introducing new payment options was much like navigating a winding and confusing backroad. Individualized development was necessary for each and every integration with acquiring banks, gateways, and merchants. This time-consuming procedure resulted in: 
– Long development cycles: Months, and sometimes even years, could be spent hammering out proprietary code, which would delay product introductions and cause valuable market windows to be missed 
– High costs: Every integration point turns into a financial toll booth, which resulted in a drain on resources and a barrier to scalability 
– Integration headaches: Each link was a one-of-a-kind puzzle that requires specialized expertise and ongoing maintenance, which diverts attention away from coming up with innovative solutions 

The power of platform technology

When it comes to speed, platform power comes to the rescue with pre-built infrastructure. The platforms that process payments are the ones that change the game. Instead of the custom-built backroads that were common in the past, they provide a pre-built highway system that comes replete with pre-existing lanes for the purpose of facilitating essential integrations. As a result, this results in a number of significant benefits: 
– Platforms remove the necessity for heavy code from scratch, which results in a reduction in the amount of time to develop a product. You may think of it as pre-fabricated bridge parts; all you have to do is slot them into position. This enables banks and payment processors to dramatically shorten the development cycles and free up resources so that you can concentrate on features that bring value 
– Integrations become streamlined, which is similar to having well-marked exits and on-ramps when you have pre-built connectors with acquiring partners, gateways, and merchants. It is not necessary for processors to engage in complicated, bespoke development in order to establish a seamless connection to the various components of the payment ecosystem 
– Platforms offer a consistent framework for managing a variety of payment methods, which is analogous to standardized traffic indicators positioned throughout the network. Processors can handle their complete payment flow with higher efficiency as a result of this simplification of operations and maintenance 
 
Additionally, platform-powered GTMs offer a wider range of advantages than just speed. One big factor is the first-mover advantage: A quicker time to market enables processors to capitalize on emerging trends before their competitors, hence establishing a pole position in the competition for market share.

Platforms also enable processors to respond quickly to changing client wants and industry laws, which makes them nimble enough to traverse unforeseen curves in the road. This makes platforms an important component of enhanced agility.

What a quick GTM entails  

The toolkit for quick GTMs is one of the main features of platform technology. In the same way that a well-equipped pit crew is stocked with tools that are expressly meant to speed GTMs, payment processing platforms incorporate the following capabilities: 
– The APIs serve as the communication route for the staff, making it possible for processors to quickly integrate with a variety of payment ecosystems through the utilization of established protocols. This facilitates connections that are both quicker and more efficient 
– Functionalities that require little or no coding can be thought of as tools that are already configured in the pit box. In order to facilitate faster product adaptations, processors have the ability to customize features and capabilities without requiring considerable coding experience 
– Pre-built compliance tools are similar to pre-approved safety tests, and they assist processors in meeting standards in various markets without requiring them to reinvent the wheel. This saves processors important time and resources 
– Modular architectures are created with modular components, which enables processors to pick and choose the functions they require, similar to how a crew chief chooses the appropriate equipment for the undertaking. This ensures that the approach is streamlined, concentrating development resources on the fundamental features 

GTM plans are undergoing a revolution as a result of payment processing platforms, which are transforming the launch process from a tedious and laborious journey into a high-speed race. The development of platform technology will result in the emergence of increasingly more advanced features and capabilities, which will further accelerate payment processors towards speedier GTMs.   

In the ever-changing payments market, this enables banks and payment processors to maintain a competitive advantage, consistently innovate, and ultimately solidify their position as frontrunners in the industry.

Which brings us to FSS BLAZE™ – a state-of-the-art, new-age payments technology platform. FSS BLAZE™ has a multi-layered architecture that decouples core services for modular development, easy upgrades and integrations. 

Find out more about FSS BLAZE™ here. 

To understand the role of technology platforms like BLAZE™ in the payments industry, download our whitepaper – Reimagining Payments – The Platform Way.