PAYMENTS FM

Demystifying Open Banking and Pay-by-Bank with Anubhav Pradhan, ShiftMate

Nikita Skitev — Mon, 11 May 2026 18:30:25 GMT

Anubhav Pradhan from ShiftMate joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about open banking, pay by bank, merchant adoption, and what payment teams should look at before they scale it.

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Participate in Survey

Why this matters

Pay by bank sounds simple: lower fees, direct account access, and another way for customers to pay. In practice, merchants still have to earn the conversion.

Customers need to understand the flow. The bank connection has to feel safe. Authentication has to work. Refunds and support have to be clear. Finance needs to see the cost benefit after any change in conversion.

That makes open banking a product, payments, finance, risk, and operations topic at the same time.

What to watch

Start with the signals that show whether pay by bank works for real customers.

Conversion versus cards
Bank authentication drop off
Coverage by market
Payment cost by method
Refund handling
Dispute and support volume
Settlement timing
Repeat usage

What it means for your team

Open banking can be useful when the customer has a reason to choose it. That reason may be speed, a better account funding flow, lower cost shared with the customer, or a use case where cards are a bad fit.

Product needs to design the moment where pay by bank makes sense. Engineering needs reliable bank connections and fallback paths. Finance needs cost and settlement visibility. Support needs clear answers when a bank payment fails or a refund is requested.

What to do next

Before pushing volume, make the operating model clear.

Pick the markets to test first
Compare conversion by segment
Review failed authentication flows
Define refund ownership
Track support tickets
Measure net cost impact
Keep card fallback available

Questions to ask internally

Where does pay by bank improve the customer journey?
Which customers have a clear reason to use it?
How does conversion compare with cards?
What happens when authentication fails?
Who owns refunds and support cases?
Does the cost saving survive the full customer journey?

Guest perspective

Adoption depends on trust and timing. The payment method has to fit the customer moment.
Lower fees help, but merchants still need conversion, coverage, refunds, and support to work.
Bank authentication is part of the product experience. Drop off there can erase the benefit.
Open banking works best when teams measure the full journey from checkout to settlement.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

PAYMENTS FM helps merchants, platforms, marketplaces, and payment product teams understand how payments work in practice through podcast episodes, expert interviews, community conversations, and practical payments education. Subscribe for operator-focused conversations about money movement.

Who is a Payments Product Manager?

Nikita Skitev — Sat, 28 Mar 2026 17:45:15 GMT

The payments product manager role has become very popular in recent years. Companies are starting to understand the value of investing into payments and having a dedicated payments person to own the payments product. However, there is no common understanding of how much this role is product versus payments.

Product Manager VS Payments Manager

When a business experiences a need with payments, they open it in the product department. In reality, this role is not only product. It oversees multiple domain areas such as compliance, vendor management, risks, business development, and many more.

I noticed that the role is very different depending if it is in enterprise company or a startup.

Payments PM role in large companies

Enterprises or companies operating with an Amazon-style working framework usually hire based on aligning with their values and work principles. They are less focused on domain expertise. It is more important for them to hire a person who will fit with their culture and will be a successful part of the team. In this case, the payments PM can even be without payments expertise and still be successful in the role.

During the interview, they will be asking how you solved problems in the past. They will not be asking about your knowledge of fraud, chargebacks, payment networks, etc.

The questions you get in the interview are product questions:

Tell me how you made a tradeoff
Tell me how you made a hard prioritization decision
Tell me how you disagreed with a leader

However, this may really differ from what a typical payments PM does in real life.

Payments PM role in startups

In smaller companies, the payments product manager is usually a payments expert. It happens that this person also manages the payments team and the roadmap. In this case, the payments PM also owns payments compliance, authorization rate metrics, payments analysis, risks, onboarding, vendor relationships, and many more.

What are the payments PM skills?

Regardless of the approach, the payments product manager is a combination of payments and product management skills.

As a payments PM, you should be a very strong PM, and here is why:

Stakeholder manager. As a payments PM, you need to work with a lot of stakeholders and strong leaders. Internal stakeholders include risks, compliance, accounting, revenue, and finance teams. So your stakeholder management should be top notch.
Defending your strategy. Because everybody has an opinion on payments. Sometimes the company CEO brings ideas to the table. A strong PM can’t be reactive to every new insight and should have a strong, defensible strategy.
Data driven. Payments have a lot of data. A payments PM should understand what the key challenges are and how certain payment metrics affect business KPIs.
Business oriented. Payments directly affect business revenue. A payments PM should be able to create a business case and understand the impact of opportunities.

Payments expertise

Depending on the business model, the payments expertise required and the level of depth can be quite different. Let me outline some key areas that are usually required:

Transaction lifecycle. Understanding how a payment moves from authorization to capture, refund, and payout and what can go wrong at each step.
Payments compliance. Navigating requirements like PCI DSS, SCA, and regional regulations that directly shape what you can and cannot build.
Vendor management. Evaluating, integrating, and maintaining relationships with payment providers, including commercial negotiations and technical partnerships.
Payments metrics and analysis. Tracking authorization rates, decline reasons, chargebacks rate, and cost per transaction to identify optimization opportunities and measure business impact.
Fraud and risk management. Balancing fraud prevention with customer experience, knowing that every friction point you add to stop bad actors also affects good ones.

Soft skills

Payments PMs are often ICs, which means they don’t have direct authority over the teams they depend on. They need to be able to lead through influence and aligning stakeholders around a shared priority without owning the reporting line.

Payments work items are usually quite complex and span multiple systems. Being able to effectively partner with engineering for understanding technical constraints, speaking their language, and earning their trust is key to delivering reliably.

Bottom line

The payments PM role is quite interesting and challenging at the same time. To be successful in this role you need to excel in both product skills and payments knowledge. However, what will be a balance of one or another will depend on where you work.

If you liked this article you also may be interested in

Payments Education

We have some spots left in our payments courses. Go to the courses page and reserve a spot. We will contact you with a schedule a pricing options.

Payments Interviews

Here are some great interviews we host on Payments.FM

Thanks for reading PAYMENTS FM! This post is public so feel free to share it.

How AI Analytics Transforming E-Commerce Businesses with Andrei Rebrov, Finsi

Nikita Skitev — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 20:46:59 GMT

Andrei Rebrov from Finsi joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about AI analytics for ecommerce payments, how teams find payment problems faster, and what still needs human judgment.

State of Payments survey

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

Ecommerce teams already have a lot of payment data. The problem is finding the signal quickly enough to do something useful.

A checkout change can move approval rates. A customer segment can perform worse than expected. A provider issue can look small in aggregate and painful in one market. AI analytics can help teams notice patterns faster, explain them in plain language, and decide where to investigate.

The value comes when analytics leads to an action: a test, a routing change, a checkout fix, a fraud rule review, or a better question for the provider.

What to watch

Use AI analytics around metrics that connect to revenue and customer experience.

Approval rate changes
Checkout conversion
Decline patterns
Segment performance
A/B test results
Provider anomalies
Data quality gaps
Actions taken after alerts

What it means for your team

AI analytics is useful when payment data connects to orders, customers, checkout behavior, and business outcomes.

Product can see where checkout flow changes affect payment completion. Finance can understand revenue impact. Risk and fraud teams can review rules with better context. Engineering can spot integration issues faster. Operators can triage payment problems without waiting for a manual report.

What to do next

Start with a small number of high value questions.

Pick the metrics tied to revenue
Connect payment and order data
Review data quality first
Use alerts for real decisions
Validate findings with operators
Track fixes after insights
Keep ownership clear

Questions to ask internally

Which payment questions take too long to answer today?
Can we connect payment data to checkout and order data?
Which alerts lead to action?
Who reviews AI generated findings?
How do we know a recommendation worked?
Is the data clean enough for useful analysis?

Guest perspective

AI analytics works best when it starts with clear business questions.
Payment data needs context from checkout, orders, customers, and experiments.
Teams should use AI to find patterns faster, then apply payment judgment.
The best test is whether analytics changes decisions and improves performance.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Agentic Commerce with Colin Luce, CEO Basis Theory

Nikita Skitev — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 19:35:20 GMT

Colin Luce from Basis Theory joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about agentic commerce, tokenization, payment data security, and how teams can give agents useful access without giving away too much control.

State of Payments survey

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

Agentic commerce changes the checkout question. A customer may ask an agent to research, choose, and buy. That creates new decisions around identity, consent, payment credentials, data access, and authorization.

Payment teams need to know where sensitive data appears, which systems can touch it, and what an agent is allowed to do before a transaction is approved.

Tokenization, vaulting, and permission design become part of the product experience, because trust depends on what happens behind the scenes.

What to watch

Map the flow before adding agents to payment journeys.

Payment data entry points
Systems with card access
Token coverage
Agent permissions
Consent capture
Authorization steps
Vendor data sharing
Compliance scope

What it means for your team

Agentic checkout will involve product, engineering, security, compliance, risk, and payments from the beginning.

Product needs a clear customer experience. Engineering needs controlled interfaces. Security needs to reduce sensitive data exposure. Compliance needs evidence around consent and scope. Risk teams need to understand what can be initiated by an agent and what requires the customer.

What to do next

Start with data access and permission boundaries.

Map the full payment flow
Tokenize sensitive data
Limit agent permissions
Define approval moments
Review consent language
Audit vendor access
Keep logs for review

Questions to ask internally

Where does sensitive payment data enter the flow?
Which systems can store or process it?
What can an agent do before customer approval?
How is consent captured and shown later?
Which tokens can be used, where, and by whom?
What changes in compliance scope?

Guest perspective

Agentic commerce needs payment infrastructure that keeps data controlled and useful.
Tokenization helps teams reduce exposure while still supporting new checkout flows.
Permissions matter as much as storage. Teams need to define what an agent can initiate, view, and approve.
The customer experience depends on trust, consent, and clear boundaries around payment credentials.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Solving Payroll and Cashflow Challenges for Small Businesses, Dan Loomis, Gusto

Nikita Skitev — Fri, 12 Dec 2025 18:07:22 GMT

Dan Loomis from Gusto joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about payroll, cash flow, and how payment timing affects small businesses.

State of Payments survey

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

For small businesses, payment timing is a real operating issue. Payroll has a deadline. Cash comes in late. Bills still need to be paid.

A failed payment or delayed transfer can create a messy week for the owner, the finance person, and the employees waiting to get paid.

This is why payments for small businesses need to be simple, visible, and predictable. The product should help the operator know what money is available and what needs attention before payroll runs.

What to watch

Start with the signals that affect cash flow and payroll confidence.

Payroll timing
Available cash before payroll
Failed or delayed payments
Invoice collection timing
Payment method cost
Billing support issues
Manual reconciliation work

What it means for your team

Payroll and cash flow touch product, finance, operations, support, and risk.

Product needs to make payment status clear. Finance needs reliable timing. Operations needs fewer manual steps. Support needs simple explanations when money is delayed. Risk needs enough control without slowing down good customers.

What to do next

Look at the moments where timing creates stress for a small business.

Map cash inflows against payroll dates
Show funding status early
Reduce avoidable payment delays
Track payroll related support tickets
Simplify billing and reconciliation
Give operators clear next steps

Questions to ask internally

Where do customers feel cash flow pressure?
Can they see if payroll is at risk before the deadline?
Which payment delays create support cases?
Which manual steps slow the team down?
Can finance explain timing without extra cleanup?

Guest perspective

Payroll is a trust moment for small businesses. The money has to move on time.
Cash flow visibility matters as much as payment collection.
Payment products should reduce stress for operators, not add another workflow.
The best experience gives the business owner clear status and clear next steps.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

International Payments: Viktoria Soltesz, PSP Angels

Nikita Skitev — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 16:04:17 GMT

Viktoria Soltesz of PSP Angels joins PAYMENTS FM for a practical conversation about international payments, provider setup, risk, compliance, and operational control.

State of Payments survey

We are running the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes, anonymous responses are welcome, and we will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

International payments can unlock growth, but they add work across providers, currencies, settlement, compliance, fraud, and reporting.

Viktoria talks about what happens when companies expand before the payment setup is ready for the markets they want to serve.

The conversation is especially useful for teams managing multiple PSPs, entering new countries, or trying to reduce payment risk without slowing down growth.

What to watch

Approval rates by market
FX cost
Settlement timing
PSP performance
Compliance friction
Fraud by region
Reconciliation issues

What it means for your team

International payments are operationally heavy.

Product needs local checkout coverage. Finance needs visibility into fees, FX, and settlement. Risk needs controls by market. Compliance needs clear responsibilities. Operations needs escalation paths when something breaks.

Without that structure, global growth can become harder to manage than expected.

What to do next

Review PSP coverage
Track cost by currency
Monitor declines by region
Document compliance ownership
Create incident paths

Questions to ask internally

Which markets are hardest to support?
Where do fees and FX change margins?
Which PSP owns each route?
Who handles compliance questions?
How fast can we diagnose an incident?

Guest perspective

Viktoria brings an operator view of global payments:

Local context matters in every market.
Provider selection should match business risk.
Compliance ownership needs to be explicit.
Reporting and reconciliation are part of control.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

PAYMENTS FM is for people building and improving payment products. Subscribe for practical conversations on payment strategy, operations, risk, compliance, monetization, fintech infrastructure, and money movement.

Payments Data for Business Success: Albert Drouart, Pagos

Nikita Skitev — Thu, 09 Oct 2025 18:41:10 GMT

Albert Drouart from Pagos joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about payments data, monitoring, benchmarks, AI, and how merchants can use payments data in day to day work.

Note: We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

Payment teams usually know when a provider is down. The harder question is what happens when the provider is up, checkout is live, and payment performance still hurts the business.

Good customers can get declined. Fraud rules can block too much volume. Retries can add cost. Chargebacks can move in one market. Fees can change in ways finance needs to explain.

This is why payments data needs a business context. Networks change. Issuers change. Customer behavior changes. Internal teams ship product changes. Revenue can leak quietly if nobody reviews the data with the right context.

What to watch

Payment teams should watch the signals that connect payments to revenue, cost, customer experience, and risk.

Approval rate by payment method and other parameters
Technical declines by provider, integration, and setup
Decline codes that affect retries and customer messaging
Fraud rules that block good customers
Chargebacks by segment and market
Payment fees and avoidable retry cost
Retry performance and recovery rate
Subscription payment failures after internal changes
Wallets, BNPL, ACH, and pay by bank performance
Market changes that affect authorization rates

What it means for your team

Payments data is useful for many teams.

Product needs it for checkout conversion and customer experience. Engineering needs it for integrations and releases. Finance needs it for cost and reconciliation. Risk and fraud teams need it for exposure and false positives. Operations needs it for incidents. Leadership needs it for revenue.

Albert explains why merchants need clean data, useful alerts, benchmarks, and enough context to decide what to do next.

This also applies to single PSP merchants. One provider still leaves many questions: approvals, declines, cost, chargebacks, fraud rules, issuers, payment methods, markets, and customer behavior.

What to do next

Start with the places where payment performance can quietly leak money.

Review technical declines every week
Compare approval rate by payment method and other parameters
Connect payments to customer, order, subscription, and revenue data
Check if retries recover revenue or add cost
Review fraud rules for good customers blocked
Track chargebacks and fraud by segment
Monitor payment fees with finance
Give product, finance, risk, fraud, operations, and engineering one shared view
Use benchmarks before assuming the issue is internal
Clean PSP data before adding more dashboards or AI workflows

Questions to ask internally

Where do we see payment performance drop before revenue notices it?
Can we tell if a decline issue comes from us, the issuer, or the market?
Do product, finance, risk, fraud, operations, and engineering use the same payment data?
Which retries recover money, and which retries add cost?
Which declines can we actually fix?
Which fraud rules block good customers?
Can finance explain payment cost changes quickly?
Do benchmarks show if the issue is internal or market wide?
Is the data clean enough for useful AI work?

Guest perspective

Payment monitoring should cover more than provider uptime. A provider can be online while approval rates, fees, fraud rules, or chargebacks move in the wrong direction.
Raw PSP data is useful, but merchants still need cleanup. The work often includes normalized fields, business context, duplicate removal, and links to customer or order data.
Benchmarks help teams avoid guessing. If approval rates fall, the issue may come from an internal change, issuer behavior, card network changes, or a broader market pattern.
AI is useful when the data is ready. Machine learning can help with detection and anomaly analysis. Generative AI can help summarize changes and explain likely causes.
The real work is turning payments data into operating information that teams can use.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

PAYMENTS FM helps merchants, platforms, marketplaces, and payment product teams understand how payments work in practice through podcast episodes, expert interviews, community conversations, and practical payments education. Subscribe for practical payments education and operator-focused conversations about money movement.

News of the Week: Stripe <> EBANX – Pix for Stripe merchants

Nikita Skitev — Sun, 17 Aug 2025 21:31:25 GMT

What happened

Stripe and Ebanx announced a partnership to enable the Pix payment method in Brazil for Stripe merchants.

The bigger picture

Stripe says that their merchants can accept Pix from Brazilian customers with settlement in the merchant’s domestic currency. This is very useful if you are not set up locally in Brazil.

https://docs.stripe.com/payments/pix

This is aimed at businesses expanding internationally and looking for growth in Latin America. Pix is a super-popular way to pay in Brazil.

Why this matters

In one of my previous roles, I did deep research on payment methods in Latin America and Brazil in particular. Boleto is still widely used, but Pix growth has been extraordinary and now leads the market.

EBANX is a merchant-of-record partner that helps companies accept local payment methods in Latin America and other regions without opening local entities.
A year ago, I already wrote that Zuora, one of the leading subscription platforms, enabled EBANX.

With the recent announcement, Stripe merchants get access to the most popular payment method in Brazil, and EBANX gets access to Stripe’s merchant base. Win-win.

What’s next

Stripe’s documentation highlights a few limitations to keep in mind:

Pix only. Even though EBANX can enable multiple local methods (including local card schemes), Stripe has enabled only Pix in this partnership. Merchants can still use the Forward API to process cards with EBANX.
No recurring payments (yet). Stripe is explicit that recurring flow isn’t supported right now.

Statement descriptor nuance. Stripe indicates EBANX appears as the recipient in customer bank statements for Pix.

I would love to see Stripe expand these partner-powered local methods beyond Pix (think local cards and other APMs in LATAM).

The Right Way to Integrate a Payment Provider: Michael Taylor, Checkout.com

Nikita Skitev — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 15:49:45 GMT

Michael Taylor from Checkout.com joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about payment provider integrations, launch planning, and the operational details that decide whether an integration holds up after go live.

State of Payments survey

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

A payment provider integration can pass testing and still cause problems after launch. Real traffic brings edge cases: failed webhooks, missing reconciliation fields, retry loops, market gaps, support tickets, and reporting questions from finance.

The integration is a product surface. It affects checkout, authorization performance, settlement, refunds, risk controls, customer support, and future expansion.

Good integration work means deciding early what success looks like and who owns each part of the payment lifecycle.

What to watch

Watch the signals that show integration quality after launch.

Integration error rates
Authorization performance
Webhook reliability
Reconciliation fields
Retry behavior
Refund flow issues
Support ticket themes
Market readiness

What it means for your team

Provider integration work should include the teams that will live with the result.

Product needs to understand checkout impact. Engineering needs clean implementation paths and failure handling. Finance needs reporting and reconciliation. Risk needs data for rules and reviews. Support needs clear customer outcomes. Leadership needs confidence that the setup can support the next market or payment method.

What to do next

Build the integration around launch and post launch operations.

Define success metrics early
Test failure paths
Validate webhook handling
Check reconciliation data
Document team ownership
Review retry logic
Plan for new markets
Prepare support playbooks

Questions to ask internally

What does a successful integration mean after launch?
Which fields does finance need for reconciliation?
What happens when a webhook fails?
Which retries help, and which add noise?
Who owns customer support edge cases?
Can this setup support the next market or payment method?

Guest perspective

Integration quality shows up after real transactions begin.
Teams should define success metrics before implementation starts.
Failure paths, webhooks, retries, and reconciliation deserve as much attention as the happy path.
A provider integration should be designed for future markets and payment methods, not just the first launch.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Payment Retries: Philip Pages (Redux)

Nikita Skitev — Sun, 29 Jun 2025 21:35:32 GMT

Philip Pages of Redux joins PAYMENTS FM for a practical conversation about failed payments, retry strategy, recurring revenue, and customer experience.

State of Payments survey

We are running the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes, anonymous responses are welcome, and we will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

Retries are one of those payment topics that look simple from the outside and get messy fast once you look at the details.

A failed recurring payment might be recoverable. It might need a different payment method. It might need better customer messaging. It might be a signal to stop trying.

Philip talks through how teams can use retry logic without creating extra cost, customer frustration, or avoidable support work.

What to watch

Retry recovery rate
Cost by payment method
Churn after failures
Issuer response codes
Stop payment signals
Retries per customer
Support tickets after failures

What it means for your team

Retries sit at the intersection of payments, product, finance, support, and customer success.

The right retry strategy can protect revenue. The wrong one can create fees, failed customer journeys, and confusing emails at the exact moment a customer relationship is at risk.

That makes retries a product and operations topic, not a background setting.

What to do next

Split recoverable and final declines
Tune timing by issuer
Compare recovery with cost
Improve customer messaging
Respect issuer stop signals

Questions to ask internally

Which declines should we retry?
How many attempts are too many?
What does each retry cost?
When do we contact the customer?
Who owns failed payment recovery?

Guest perspective

Philip brings a focused view on failed payment recovery:

Retry strategy needs business context.
Decline codes should drive different actions.
Recovery should be measured against cost.
Customer communication is part of payment performance.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Payments For Platforms: Joshua Silver (Rainforrest)

Nikita Skitev — Mon, 28 Apr 2025 17:06:31 GMT

Joshua Silver of Rainforest joins PAYMENTS FM for a practical conversation about embedded payments, platform strategy, merchant onboarding, and risk ownership.

State of Payments survey

We are running the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes, anonymous responses are welcome, and we will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

If you run a software platform, payments can become a real product line. That also means real decisions around onboarding, support, liability, risk, payouts, and the merchant experience.

Joshua gets into the choices platforms face when they move from referral or reseller models toward owning more of the payment flow.

The episode is useful for product, payments, risk, operations, and leadership teams thinking through how far they want to go with embedded payments.

What to watch

Merchant onboarding drop off
Activation after signup
Support volume by merchant type
Risk and liability ownership
Disputes by segment
Payout timing
Payment margin

What it means for your team

Embedded payments touches almost every part of a platform business.

Product needs a smooth merchant experience. Engineering needs reliable integrations. Risk needs clear exposure limits. Operations needs support paths. Finance needs clean reporting. Leadership needs to understand the revenue and liability tradeoffs.

That mix is where payment strategy becomes company strategy.

What to do next

Pick a model that fits your maturity
Define risk ownership early
Track onboarding friction
Measure buyer and seller experience
Treat payments as a product capability

Questions to ask internally

Who owns merchant onboarding?
Who handles payment support?
Where does liability sit?
Which metrics show merchant health?
What would make payments worth owning?

Guest perspective

Joshua shares a platform-first view of embedded payments:

Payments can deepen the merchant relationship.
Risk ownership should be clear before go-live.
Onboarding quality shapes adoption.
Platforms need payment partners that fit their operating model.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Benefits of Payment Orchestration: Zubin Vandrevala (Gr4vy)

Nikita Skitev — Fri, 21 Mar 2025 19:29:58 GMT

Zubin Vandrevala from Gr4vy joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about payment orchestration, routing, provider control, and how merchants should think before adding more complexity.

State of Payments survey

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

Orchestration gives merchants more control, but control only helps when the team knows what it wants to improve.

A second provider can improve resilience. It can also add reporting work, routing rules, reconciliation gaps, and more vendor management.

The business case should be clear before the stack grows. Are you trying to improve approvals, reduce cost, support new markets, add payment methods, or reduce provider risk?

What to watch

Measure orchestration through business outcomes, not vendor count.

Approval rate by route
Cost by provider
Failover performance
Market coverage
Payment method coverage
Reporting consistency
Reconciliation quality
Routing rule complexity

What it means for your team

Orchestration works best when product, engineering, finance, risk, and operations share the same goal.

Product needs better checkout outcomes. Engineering needs routing that can be maintained. Finance needs trusted reporting. Risk needs enough data for reviews. Operations needs clear incident handling when a provider has an issue.

What to do next

Start with the problem, then choose the setup.

Define why orchestration is needed
Pick the first success metric
Test failover before launch
Keep routing rules simple
Align reporting with finance
Review reconciliation early
Document who owns changes

Questions to ask internally

What problem should orchestration solve?
Which provider routes perform best by market?
How do we know failover worked?
Can finance trust the reporting?
Who owns routing rules after launch?
Does the added complexity pay for itself?

Guest perspective

Orchestration is useful when it solves a clear business problem.
Routing needs measurement across approval rate, cost, reliability, and operations.
More providers can help, but they also create more rules and more reporting work.
Merchants should keep the setup simple enough for the team to operate.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Optimizing Payment Performance with AI: Insights from Inai CEO

Nikita Skitev — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 17:25:41 GMT

Inai joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about payment success rates, AI, routing, testing, and how teams can find payment problems faster.

State of Payments survey

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

Payment performance can look simple in a dashboard and messy in real life. Success rate changes by market, customer segment, provider, payment method, and checkout flow.

AI can help teams spot patterns faster, but the value comes from better decisions. A model should point the team toward a fix, a test, a routing change, or a provider conversation.

Clean data still comes first. If payment events, orders, customer segments, and provider responses are messy, AI will mostly make the mess easier to summarize.

What to watch

Use AI around metrics that already matter to the business.

Success rate by segment
Failed payment patterns
Checkout test results
Provider performance
Routing outcomes
Account to account opportunities
Data quality gaps
Recommendations that led to fixes

What it means for your team

AI payment work needs product, engineering, data, finance, and operations involved early.

Product needs to know which checkout changes help customers. Engineering needs clean event data. Finance needs revenue and cost impact. Operations needs alerts that lead to action. Data teams need definitions that everyone can trust.

What to do next

Start with a few useful questions instead of a big AI program.

Define success rate by business model
Segment before acting on averages
Connect payments to orders and customers
Test checkout and routing changes
Review data quality first
Track actions after recommendations
Keep a human review step

Questions to ask internally

Which payment questions take too long to answer today?
Can we connect payment, checkout, order, and customer data?
Which AI recommendations led to action?
How do we measure if a fix worked?
Which data gaps block useful analysis?

Guest perspective

Payment success rate needs context by customer, market, method, and provider.
AI can help teams find patterns faster when the data is clean.
A/B testing and routing changes need clear measurement before teams scale them.
The practical test is whether AI changes decisions and improves performance.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Creating Fintech Success Story in Emerging Markets: The inDrive Approach

Nikita Skitev — Thu, 06 Feb 2025 03:37:36 GMT

Accepting payments in emerging markets has always been a challenge. Enabling local currencies, local payment methods, and staying compliant with local regulations are just some of the problems that businesses face when they operate in these markets.

I always wanted to speak to someone who had already achieved some significant scale and success while operating in these markets. This is why, for today's interview, our guest is Alina Zavorokhina, who is the Head of Product and Business at inDrive Money. If you are not familiar with inDrive, inDrive is a global mobility and urban services platform.

In today's conversation, we'll be taking a deep dive into some specific and unique challenges that inDrive navigates while processing payments across the geographies they operate in. We'll also discuss inDrive’s innovative financial services offerings.

Can you give us a high-level description of what inDrive is and what role payments play in inDrive's success?

I think that actually not so many people know about inDrive, because usually when I travel somewhere, for example, to Europe or the US, everybody asks me, "inDrive? So what is it?" We are a mobility company. We run an app that allows users to hail rides, order courier or cargo deliveries, and we primarily operate in emerging and developing markets. And that's also kind of our mission. We know that in developed countries, there are already so many services, and there is no challenge, you know, just to order a taxi or, for example, order some food. But in developing countries, the challenge lies in how to provide these services to a wider population and do so on equitable terms.

inDrive is originally from a city called Yakutsk, which is the coldest city in the world. The origin story is that one day the temperature dropped to negative 40, and there was actually a problem ordering a regular taxi because taxi operators doubled their prices, and many were stranded in the cold and could not get where they were going. That’s when one of our colleagues, who still works at inDrive, created a social media group to connect people. So, if, for example, you wanted to go somewhere and you had some space in your car, you could pick up this person and go somewhere together. And that's actually how inDrive, with the 48 countries where we operate now, was born.

Regarding payments, that's a super interesting topic. If you order a car with inDrive, you, as a passenger, usually pay directly to your driver. In most cases, inDrive does not handle this transaction. Usually, people pay cash, as we know that cash is still the most used form of payment in many countries where we operate. They can also just transfer money online to the driver's bank account or pay with any popular electronic wallet available in the country. That’s how we can provide freedom to both drivers and passengers, as they actually decide both the price and the method of payment.

You mentioned that inDrive operates in emerging markets. So I would imagine there are lots of interesting challenges. Can you tell me a little bit more about your payment strategy in these markets and what's your recipe for success in accepting payments in all these different countries?

The main challenge is providing the most convenient payment methods for our users, and understanding what those methods will be in all of the countries where we operate and then keeping them stable. We do have a kind of internal wallet, and if you are a driver, you need to top up this wallet in advance to be able to later get some orders from passengers. We, as inDrive, will charge a commission from this wallet at the end of the ride. The commission is not high; usually, we charge just around ten percent, while, for example, our competitors may charge up to 50% of the transaction. And that means also for us that we can't afford a high commission when we pay for payments from providers.

The challenge is finding payment providers that allow us to offer convenient payment methods to drivers while maintaining low commissions. Drivers usually top up their wallets at the beginning of their day. They may have a bank card, but usually, they have cash. That means for us that we also need to provide cash payment methods for them. As a result, we have different payment methods and partners in all of the countries and also manage the commission to keep it at the same 10% level everywhere.

Global payment methods like Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal are all trying to cover as many markets as possible. But local payment methods are also very popular. What trends do you see? Do you see that domestic payment methods are growing even faster?

Definitely, we have different scenarios in different countries, but I think in general we have 30% of transactions made by a bank card like Visa or MasterCard, 30% in cash, and 30% by some local payment methods. But there are some differences. For example, Mexico is one of our biggest markets, but the payment trends there differ from what we see in other LATAM countries. Despite efforts to introduce local payment methods (SPEI, CoDi), they haven't gained significant traction yet. Instead, Mexico seems to be following a similar path to the US, where cards gain popularity. But when we, for example, go to Brazil, there is PIX, which is already a world-known success. They provided the payment rails so that with PIX, you can transfer money instantly from one bank account to another in one second without any additional commission for the people making the transaction. And in Brazil, 90 percent of our drivers top up their wallets with PIX.

So, there are many cases in the world, and definitely, local payment methods are booming, but it also depends on the government strategy and how they help local payment methods grow.

You mentioned that the payment landscape in emerging markets is very fragmented, and you need many providers. Are there any other challenges you're facing when operating in these emerging markets from a payments perspective?

I think stability is also a problem. To ensure payments are consistently available for our drivers without interruptions, we always need strong backup options. For example, last year, we had a big project building backups in different countries for other payment providers and payment methods.

Another thing that we're doing is integrating with payment orchestrators, which help us manage the payment flows between different providers and methods. I may say that it's a real success case for us because we’ve managed to reduce costs significantly while improving the product funnel, leading to a much better user experience and more efficient payment processing overall.

When you talk about the savings opportunity, do you mean mostly on the fees that payment orchestrators allow you to route transactions more efficiently, or do you mean more on the integration side that they can save you hours of work in building integrations with different gateways?

Actually, that's a good question because as of now we calculated only the savings on the cost for the fees, but I like your idea to also calculate the savings on the integration side. I think we did save on the integration because usually, they provide the payment methods included. We still need to, for example, sign contracts with the payment providers, but regarding the integration, it's already included.

You said that inDrive treats drivers as entrepreneurs, and I believe you recently launched a couple of new products for drivers on the fintech side. Can you tell us a little bit more about these products?

Two years ago, we created an internal startup, now called inDrive.Money, and the aim of this team was to find out what kind of financial products we may provide to our millions of users. We found that there are no big challenges among our passengers and there are many other financial products in the market they can use. But there is a huge injustice when we speak about drivers. These are people who work for themselves as gig-economy workers. They choose to spend their time, energy, and car earning money for themselves and their families, and usually, they work with some platforms, and they earn enough. But usually, traditional banks and financial organizations don't know about this income, and even if they do, they don't find it valid and reliable enough to provide any financial services to drivers, such as loans or credits. We spent one month traveling across Latin America, talking with our drivers, and we found how difficult it is for them to get credit when they need it.

When they go to the bank asking for a loan, they get declined, and they need to go to microfinancial organizations that don't decline but provide inadequate interest rates. It's just impossible for them to pay on time, and in the end, they ruin their credit history. That's super sad, listening to these stories.

And what we did was the launch of a new product – cash loans for the drivers. The advantage is that we know how much they earn, and there is no other company in the world that knows that as well as inDrive. We then partner with a financial institution that scores the data and provides the loans, and we enable the whole process for drivers through our inDrive app. That's how we built a credit product customized for them. Drivers loan the exact amount of money with an adequate interest rate so that they can get cash, pay for whatever they want, and then repay the loan by continuing to make rides with us. We not only provide the cash, but we also help them repay the loan on time thanks to seamless integration of repayment into the inDrive app. This is the exact moment when they build their credit history for the future. That's how, in the future, they can get a loan for a car or a bigger amount of money.

We launched this product last year. First, we launched in Mexico, then we scaled to Colombia, and now we have two more countries to launch this year.

So, I would imagine if you're scaling this product, you consider it a success. Do you measure success for this? Is it more about the value you bring to your drivers and increasing the value of your platform, or do you also see this as a revenue opportunity for inDrive?

Actually, both. When we started this project, we were focusing on the users. That's how we found this issue, that's how we found the partner who helped us build this customized product. It was just a test. First, we tested the demand. Then, we found that, first, our drivers love this product. We did NPS surveys, and we know that the probability that they will recommend this product to their friends and colleagues is 75%, which is amazing for a credit product. Second, we know that the drivers who took a loan started making more rides with us, which is exactly the benefit for the main business because that's how we increase loyalty and retention. Drivers trust us, and they see that we trust them too, which makes our connection with them even stronger. And number three, we also earn on that. We earn some revenue share. That's why I would say it's definitely a success because all of the three stakeholders – users, the main ride-hailing business, and us as a financial startup – all have some success here.

Yeah, that's great to hear. You mentioned that you also help drivers repay the loan. So, I would imagine that's how this financial product is integrated with the global inDrive system and platform. Can you tell me a little more about how you actually help them do this, and what's the experience like?

The magic here is that we just added an additional commission for them as a repayment for the loan. As I mentioned, we charge a commission as a fee for using the inDrive app, and now we’ve included an extra, small percentage after the ride is completed specifically for loan repayment. That means that drivers still need to top up the wallet, but then, when the ride is finished, they pay the commission for inDrive and also pay for the loan repayment. In the end, we found that drivers were pretty happy with that. One of the reasons why they said they would recommend this product to their friends and colleagues was the repayment with rides. From their perspective, they don’t need to do anything additional to repay the loan. For them, it's all about convenience and building their credit history, as people in Mexico, for example, understand how important that is for their future.

What are your expansion plans with this product? You mentioned that you are in several countries right now. Are you planning to expand to other countries where you operate, or are you planning to add new features to this product?

We plan to scale to more countries. I think this year we will end up in four countries, and during the next year, we plan to launch in an extra four to six countries. That takes time. Every country has a legal scheme that we need to research. An additional integration is sometimes required if we work with a new partner there.

We definitely want to test more ideas about this credit product and repayment with rides. It looks like there is a huge need for credit products among people working in the gig economy, and this repayment with rides is a super convenient method of payment. We also consider some tests with passengers.

When you said the product for riders, do you mean financing for their rides, like "buy now, pay later," or do you mean just if they need to buy something outside of the platform and there will be some sort of financing?

I think we will explore and test different options. Riders trust inDrive, and that's a really nice opportunity for us to test what kind of financial products we can provide to them. Regarding "buy now, pay later" or "ride now, pay later," there's a nice case in India. There's a taxi company called Ola, and they have this "ride now, pay later" feature. Based on comments in the market, that's a pretty interesting idea. I know that Uber also launched this "ride now, pay later" feature in Europe. That's something we want to test first.

Let's talk about the future of payments for inDrive and the future of fintech products. How do you see payments evolving in the next three to five years? Do you see it more on the expansion side, or are you planning any new features on your product for customers?

I think we will discover some methods for how we can still provide online payments for passengers. If we want to gain a new audience, we need to solve this issue with the costs and the convenience of payments.

One idea we have is to keep this convenience of payment directly to drivers but simplify the user experience. For example, enable drivers to suggest the payment methods they want to get payments from passengers. For passengers, automatically provide drivers’ credentials for quick payment through bank services – usually, it's a phone number or a special code when we talk about PIX in Brazil. Another option is payment links. Whatever it is, it is still about connecting passengers and drivers directly, keeping the costs as low as we can, and making the payment process a bit simpler for riders.

Why Some Subscription Merchants Choosing Standalone Billing When There is Stripe Billing

Nikita Skitev — Mon, 27 Jan 2025 04:36:49 GMT

The payments industry is more competitive than ever, with merchants taking advantage of the many providers available to get better deals. For payment providers relying only on transaction fees is not enough – they need to offer more services to keep growing.

Stripe has turned itself into the “Amazon of payments” by adding extra services like Connect, Radar, Taxes, Billing, Treasury, Atlas, Issuing, and others. These tools help merchants handle their payments and business needs all in one place.

When was introduced, Stripe Billing was seen as missing some features, but it has improved into a strong solution that now competes with established platforms like Chargebee and Recurly.

Stripe has even created tools to make it easier for businesses to switch from other billing systems.

Stripe Billing vs Competitors

But why haven’t all merchants switched to Stripe Billing? The answer is payment orchestration.

Standalone billing platforms like Zuora, Chargebee, and Recurly, traditionally have payment orchestration modules. This modules allow merchants to use multiple payment providers and optimize transaction success based on routing strategies like geography, currency, volume, card type or others.

Stripe’s answer to this challenge is the Forward API, the tool that lets merchants use Stripe as a vault while sending transactions to other providers like Adyen, Braintree or others.

So what is a blocker?

While Forward API sounds great, it is currently supports only card payments. PayPal is one of the most popular payment methods in the US and they do not let third-party providers, including Stripe, to process PayPal or Venmo payments for US merchants. To accept PayPal, merchants have to work directly with PayPal through PPCP or Braintree.

This forces merchants to make a choice:

Use Stripe Billing and Forward API for card payments, without accepting PayPal
Use a 3rd party billing system and manage multiple vendors
Build own billing solution

What’s next

Stripe is heavily investing in improving the Forward API to handle more payment types, better integrations, and additional providers. Stripe also trying to turn the table by introducing its own proprietary wallet, Stripe Link (see my LI post).

If PayPal opens up its system or Stripe finds a solution, it could significantly boost Stripe’s Billing growth.

For merchants, the takeaway is clear: build a payments strategy that balances your business needs and customer experience while considering the strengths and limitations of each platform.

Exploring Trends in Payments: Jenna Wyer (ex-Venmo, ex-Braintree)

Nikita Skitev — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 03:08:57 GMT

Jenna Wyer from Payments Strategist joined PAYMENTS FM to talk about payment trends, product work, and how teams should decide which changes deserve attention.

State of Payments survey

We are launching the State of Payments survey. It takes about four minutes to complete, and anonymous responses are welcome. We will publish the results at the end of the year.

Why this matters

Payment teams see new trends every year. Some change customer behavior. Some change cost. Some create risk or compliance work. Some are mostly noise.

The job is to decide what matters for your customer, market, and business model.

A trend becomes useful when it changes a product decision: which payment method to add, which checkout flow to test, which risk control to adjust, or which reporting view the business needs.

What to watch

Track trends through operating impact.

Customer adoption
Checkout conversion
Payment cost movement
Network and regulatory changes
Fraud and risk shifts
Reporting demand
Support volume
Team effort to launch

What it means for your team

Payments trend work should be practical.

Product needs to understand customer demand. Finance needs cost impact. Risk needs exposure changes. Engineering needs implementation effort. Operations needs support and exception handling. Leadership needs to know why this trend matters now.

What to do next

Turn each trend into a business question.

Pick the customer segment affected
Estimate cost and conversion impact
Review regulatory or network changes
Compare payment method performance
Check operational effort
Decide what can wait

Questions to ask internally

Which trend changes customer behavior?
Which trend changes our cost or risk?
Which payment methods deserve a test?
What would we stop doing to make room?
How will we know the change worked?

Guest perspective

Payment trends matter when they affect product, cost, risk, or customer behavior.
Teams should separate market noise from operating changes.
The best payment teams translate trends into roadmap and measurement decisions.
Some trends can wait, and that is a useful decision too.

Listen or watch

Resources

Related episodes

Payments News Weekly – Jan 4th, 2025

Nikita Skitev — Sat, 04 Jan 2025 18:17:20 GMT

Hey, Nikita is here!

In Payments News Weekly, I read all the payments news and summarize them in one weekly email so you don’t have to.

If you liked this newsletter, consider also subscribing to dedicated LinkedIn page.

If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed in:

Fiserv expanding embedded finance capabilities in Canada by acquiring Payfare

What happened

Fiserv, a leading global provider of payments and financial services technology, has announced its acquisition of Payfare, a Canadian company specializing in earned wage access (EWA) solutions for gig economy workers. The deal is valued at approximately $140 million USD.

These addition is expected to strengthen Fiserv’s solutions in embedded banking, payments, and lending, particularly for large enterprises and financial institutions. 

Source: Paymentsjournal

What does it mean

Embedded financial services is definitely a hot topic this days. Customers expect to see financial services in place they operate and not to switch to other platforms.

To make financial services successful the key is to provide great customer experience by smoothly integrating it with a platform.

It is ‘exciting Time' for pay by bank and open banking thinks Trustly CPO

What happened

Trustly’s Chief Product Officer, Adam D’arcy, describes the current period as an “exciting time” for the adoption of pay-by-bank technology.

While open banking has gained traction in regions like the United Kingdom and Hong Kong, the United States is beginning to embrace its potential.

Source: PYMNTS

What does it mean

Many expert I was speaking to emphasizes that user experience is what pausing the pay by bank adoption.

Solutions like Apple Pay, Shop Pay, Stripe Link provide the level of confidence and convenience.

I think there should be a significant shift in the industry for pay by bank to expand to a new level. For example if Apple Pay will add pay by bank as a payment method.

There also a need for a customer incentive similar to cards which is absent these days. Customers typically earn 1-5% cashback or miles back on every card purchase.

There are no incentives with pay by bank.

WhatsApp continues their payments expansion in India

What happened

The peer-to-peer payments service integrated within the WhatsApp messaging platform, is now available to all users in India. This expansion follows the National Payments Corporation of India’s (NPCI) decision to remove the previous user cap, which had limited the service to 100 million users. With this change, WhatsApp’s entire Indian user base, estimated at over 500 million, can now access and utilize the payments feature.

Launched in 2020, WhatsApp Pay operates on India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), enabling users to send money directly to their contacts from within the app.

This development positions WhatsApp Pay as a significant player in India’s digital payments landscape, offering a convenient and widely accessible option for seamless money transfers among users nationwide.

Source: Finextra

What does it mean

Is WhatsApp becoming a super app? Yes!

WhatsApp payments are also integrated with WhatsApp Business allowing businesses to manage payments together with messages.

This is also a great example of utilizing UPI payment method in India.

I am very curious with WhatsApp expansion to other markets.

X CEO confirming plans to launch payments in 2025

What happened

X announced plans for a payment system called X Money, aiming to enhance user connections on the platform. CEO Linda Yaccarino highlighted the transformative potential of this initiative.

What does it mean

I think an approach of adding payments to the platform doesn’t necessarily result in user adoption.

Personally I still don’t see a use case for payments or money transfers on X in the US. If it is going to compete with Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, what are X’s advantages for customers? Happy to be wrong on this one.

If you liked this newsletter, consider sharing it:

Thank you for reading!

– Nikita

Inside Wise: Cutting Costs and Innovating Payments

Nikita Skitev — Sat, 21 Dec 2024 16:10:53 GMT

During Money20/20, I had the pleasure of speaking with Balázs Barna, Wise's Head of US Engineering & Austin Office Site Lead. He shared fascinating insights into Wise's payment strategy, touching on geo-expansion, compliance, and innovation in the payments ecosystem.

Expansion Strategy

You’ve already covered many countries. Is your strategy to expand into more regions or deepen your presence in existing ones?

"We currently support more than 40 currencies across over 160 countries," Balázs explained. "For example, the EU has one currency but spans multiple countries. It’s important to differentiate between supporting pay-ins and pay-outs, as they’re not the same. Our priority is to offer both in the regions where we operate."

Wise’s strategy focuses on investing in low-cost, high-quality payment infrastructure. While new markets like the UK and Australia are on the radar, they remain committed to enhancing their operations in existing regions.

"Take England, for example – we gained direct access to the UK Faster Payments System in 2016. This step allowed us to save 20% on fees, and those savings were passed directly to our customers through lower fees," Balázs shared. "Instant payments are also a key focus, as they’re highly valued by customers. We’ve seen significant traction wherever we enable this feature."

Managing Market Depth

How do you manage to establish such a strong presence in each market?

"Wise holds 65 licenses globally, making us one of the most regulated companies in the payments industry," Balázs said. "Compliance is critical. We proactively engage with regulators and aim for complete transparency. This approach fosters trust and collaboration."

By maintaining strong relationships with regulators, Wise ensures its operations remain compliant while delivering high-quality services.

Tackling Fraud

Payments often come with fraud risks. How does Wise handle this?

"Fraud management is a major investment area for us," Balázs emphasized. "We’ve hired hundreds of engineers and developed advanced machine-learning models to combat fraud. Additionally, we work with third-party providers to bolster our defenses."

Wise employs a global fraud detection model, analyzing data to stay ahead of fraudulent activity. "Compliance and fraud prevention go hand in hand. We thoroughly investigate every fraud case to learn and adapt," he added.

Supporting Local Payment Methods

How important is it for Wise to support local payment methods like FedNow or PIX?

"It’s incredibly important," Balázs said. "Customers value the convenience of using local payment methods, and it allows them to choose options they’re most comfortable with."

Wise prioritizes integrating alternative local payment methods to enhance the user experience. "While not all payment networks are open for integration, we actively work with those that are."

Introducing Invoice Solutions

Wise recently launched an invoicing solution for customers. Can you share more about it?

"This is part of our broader strategy," Balázs explained. "Wise is already a great partner for accepting payments due to our low fees. We’ve designed the invoicing solution to be simple and intuitive, which has made it popular among international business owners."

The platform simplifies accepting international invoices, particularly for businesses operating across multiple regions. "For example, if you have businesses in Germany and the U.S., our platform allows seamless international transactions. Features like auto-conversion rules for currencies and interest-earning capabilities across multiple currencies are unique value propositions."

Driving Payment Improvements

What initiatives are you pursuing to further improve payments?

"One of our main goals is investing in more direct integrations with payment networks to lower fees," Balázs said. "We’ve also heavily invested in internal machine-learning tools to streamline payment operations, reducing costs and, ultimately, fees for customers."

Wise remains committed to creating more efficient payment systems that benefit users worldwide. "Operational efficiency and customer affordability drive everything we do," Balázs concluded.

Want more insights from payments industry leaders? Subscribe now and never miss an update!

If you liked this interview you will also like these guides:

What is a Payments Strategy?

Nikita Skitev — Wed, 23 Oct 2024 18:07:14 GMT

When it comes to accepting payments, improving one aspect could significantly impact other payment processes.

For example, reducing checkout friction could potentially lead to an increase in payment fraud.

That's why it's essential to take a step back and consider the bigger picture by developing a Payments Strategy.

A Payments Strategy is a comprehensive plan that addresses all aspects of payment processing. Typically, a Payments Strategy includes various payment processes.
Here are 10 key components that your payments strategy may include:

Checkout flow and user experience
Geo strategy and specifics of the local markets
Payment methods and supported platforms
Vendor management and payment partnerships
Compliance and payment regulations
Fraud and trust and safety
Payment Intelligence, monitoring, and insights
Operational processes
Accounting and reporting
Other components specific to the business model

In the future posts we will discuss each of the components listed above.

Apple required Patreon to use Apple In-App Purchase. Do you have to enable IAP too?

Nikita Skitev — Sun, 25 Aug 2024 18:14:38 GMT

Hey, Nikita is here.

In Payments Weekly, I cover the latest news in the payments industry. If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed this month:

What's happening

Starting November 2024 Apple is requiring Patreon to use Apple In-App Purchase for creator subscription billing. Let’s discuss what is happening in the Apple In Purchase space and how merchants should identify if they have to use IAP for their apps.

Source: Patreon

While this demand seems unexpected it is unclear why Patreon was allowed to use direct payments in the first place. Today if any Patreon users create their own iOS application with exclusive content, they will have to use IAP for subscription billing.

To resolve the case Patreon is going to offer two options to its creators. Either creators will pay an extra 30% to existing Patreon fees of 5%-12% or creators will increase the price for their customers.

Patreon did not disclose the number of subscribers from the iOS ecosystem or whether Patreon is contesting this decision with Apple. Patreon’s CEO explained the situation and guided their creators community on how to adapt to the current situation in the Youtube video.

Bigger picture*

Apple IAP rules are not always crystal clear. Online services have to use IAP for in-app currency purchases, in game items, digital content, and many more. However the rules do not define all the potential cases. In addition, Apple changes their rules from time to time.

Source: App Review Guidelines

Some read that the IAP is not required if the digital service (not digital content) is also provided outside of the iOS ecosystem.

How industry reacts to IAP

Not everyone is ready to share their revenue with Apple. For example, Netflix and Spotify do not use the IAP in their apps. Customers need to jump through the hoops (go to mobile web) to subscribe to their services.

Source: Netflix.com

There are some other notable cases where Apple has faced strong pushback regarding its fees from the industry.

Epic Games

Why Epic’s lawsuit against Apple just won’t quit

"As a reminder, this whole case got started when Epic challenged Apple’s up to 30 percent fees to developers for in-app purchases through a splashy campaign where it basically ignored Apple’s App Store guidelines and put in its own mobile payment processing system in its popular game Fortnite. ... Ultimately, Gonzalez Rogers found that Epic did breach its contract with Apple with its stunt and ordered it to pay Apple 30 percent of the revenue collected through its outside payment system — about $3.5 million."
Though Apple won on most counts, Gonzalez Rogers also ordered the company to allow developers to use other purchase mechanisms besides Apple’s for in-app purchases."

37Signals (Basecamp, HEY)

Apple vs. HEY, antitrust, and monopoly June 16th, 2020
Our CEO’s take on Apple’s App Store payment policies | HEY (June 19, 2020)
Apple, HEY, and the path forward June 22, 2020

“You can no longer help the customer who’s buying your product with the following requests: Refunds, credit card changes, discounts, trial extensions, hardship exceptions, comps, partial payments, non-profit discounts, educational discounts, downtime credits, tax exceptions, etc. You can’t control any of this when you charge your customers through Apple’s platform. So now you’re forced to sell a product - with your name and reputation on it - to your customers, yet you are helpless and unable to help them if they need a hand with any of the above.”

Spotify

Spotify was one of the first companies who were unhappy with the 30% rule. Spotify created a dedicated website about their relationships with Apple.

“The Coalition for App Fairness cites three main issues of contention: Apple’s 30 percent cut of any payments sold through the store, the lack of any other competitive options for app distribution on iOS, and a claim that Apple uses its control over iOS to favor its own services”

Source: timetoplayfair.com

What’s next

I do not expect that Apple is going to change their policy anytime soon and we can expect other players raising the concern about 30% fees.

Thanks for reading Payments Weekly! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Klarna introduce balance and cashback new features (thepaypers)
How Adyen does AI (Adyen Medium)
Adyen confident in H2 success as multiple partnerships reap dividends (paymentexpert)
Zip’s one-click BNPL payment method integrated into Stripe (paymentexpert)

Disclaimer

*This article is not a legal or financial advice. If you need to determine whether your app needs to use IAP or not, it is good idea to find professional legal advice.