Juggling between several payment providers when you have a high-volume gambling business can be exhausting, time-consuming, and financially inefficient. No wonder such an approach is gradually receding into the past, giving way to more efficient and tailored to the needs of high-risk business payment solutions.
Among the top in the field are payment orchestration platforms designed for a multi-provider strategy approach through an open API that gives business owners access to many payment providers via a single integration.
Today we decided to share how the Akurateco Payments Orchestration Platform saved our gambling client $600K per year and increased the approval ratio by 23%.
How did we do it?
The old way of running things
The client whose story we are about to inquire into is an online gambling company with about $3.5M average monthly turnover. Taking into account the specifics of gambling’s high loads, the client had 40 different payment connectors, including Alternative Payment Methods, Credit Cards, and Crypto Providers, to process transactions efficiently. Of them, 35 payment connectors were for pay-ins, and 5 were for payouts.
Working with 40 payment connectors on 40 different admin panels would be extremely difficult. To manage them somehow, the client developed his own platform. However, the self-developed platform lacked some crucial features and had no proper configuration of routing and cascading technologies, as well as balancing between MIDs and anti-fraud.
Moreover, this in-house payment platform was not rational in terms of employee time. The client had a department of 18 people in charge of working with payment providers, monitoring the dashboard of each of them, and manually making payment reconciliations, often to one customer from different payment providers, to ensure every client had the whole picture. In addition to the fact that it was tricky to perform, such an approach did not produce the required result. By the time the client approached Akurateco, he already had a list of issues he wanted to be resolved with proper payment orchestration software.
The client’s goals
- Optimize payment flow
One of the client’s primary goals was to optimize the payment flow. The client understood that with such a high volume of transactions, he would not be able to control the processes manually. That is why he searched for software with efficient features to save on processing fees and chose the right providers to handle transactions.
- Reduce the cost of software maintenance
The self-made platform that the client developed to manage 40 connectors was outdated, but still required a lot of time, money, and employee resources. Instead, he sought ready-made, efficient payment solutions requiring no maintenance from him.
- Improve working conditions for employees
Although the employees demonstrated high performance, working on an inefficient platform, they could not achieve the desired results. Furthermore, many of them were involved in tasks that could be automated, making their working conditions more productive. That is why one of the key goals after the transition to the new platform was to direct the efforts of employees to solve tasks by utilizing efficient tools.
- Enhance bank relations
Being a high-risk industry, gambling is likely to have a higher rate of decline. But, there is a possibility of not sending potentially declined transactions to payment connectors at all. To avoid unnecessary declines from banks, the client needed powerful anti-fraud, routing, and cascading technology.
Solutions suggested by Akurateco
- Smart routing
In the matter of payment flow optimization, one of the leading technologies is smart routing. Payment routing technology chooses the best payment provider for each transaction based on a number of parameters, such as the lowest processing fee, country, currency, ticket size, first deposit or regular client, etc. Therefore, more transactions are approved, resulting in a better checkout experience for customers, an increased conversion rate, and a reduced processing cost.
- Cascading for 3DS MIDs
Cascading technology is designed to reduce the number of failed transactions. In this way, if a transaction is declined, it is cascaded to another payment provider, and as many as you have connected, to achieve a successful result within one payment attempt. Akurateco applies cascading even to the most complex types of transactions, such as 3DS MIDs.
- Anti-fraud
For a gambling business, it is extremely helpful to have anti-fraud filters tailored to the needs of a high-risk industry. In our client’s case, anti-fraud is essential not only to identify fraudulent transactions beforehand, but also to establish better relations with banks. Thus, when a non-fraudulent transaction is expected to be declined due to bank parameters, Akurateco anti-fraud will not send it to that payment channel initially. Instead, it will be sent to another payment channel through smart routing and cascading.
- One-click payments
The ability of customers to pay quickly and conveniently without entering payment details for each new transaction is another crucial feature for the gambling industry. That is why we suggested our client integrates one-click payments into his business.
- Billing
Billing technology helps you calculate your fees, profits, and settlements wisely. According to the contract rates, this technology helps our clients keep track of how much each of their banks owes them.
- Fully branded payment page
Our platform allows customizing payment pages according to the client’s style. For instance, the payment page’s colors can be changed, and the client’s logo added. Additionally, we can fully customize the payment page to the client’s design, while hosting it on our PCI DSS-certified servers. At checkout, a branded payment page will broadcast the client’s brand and increase the trust of his customers.
Achieving results
After six months of the platform’s usage, the client had restructured the department responsible for working with payment providers. Previously, the department had 18 employees. As of now, eight employees are in charge of communication with providers. Two people are responsible for anti-fraud. The rest of the employees were transferred to other departments and put in charge of the search for new providers. As a result, employees’ efforts are now applied to more efficient tasks, increasing the efficiency of the company as a whole.
Also, by using cascading and routing technologies the client has increased the approval ratio by 23 percent across his payment channels. Moreover, the client no longer requires a technical team to develop new connectors, which has significantly reduced maintenance costs. The development of connectors is now a duty that Akurateco takes upon itself. Previously, the client had his own department of 5 people to integrate new connectors. It was costly, time-consuming, and inefficient since the antiquated technology used in his self-made platform did not allow them to utilize connectors effectively. In addition, Akurateco’s anti-fraud system significantly decreased the number of fraudulent transactions and chargebacks.
Overall, our client saved $50К per month on processing costs through payment flow optimization, increased conversion, and a decreased number of declines. By the end of the year of the platform’s usage, there will be a $600K reduction in processing costs.
The whole onboarding process took the client two months. Although Akurateco provided the platform to the client in 3 business days, onboarding included switching all of the client’s payment channels to the new payment solution, the configuration of all logical chains of connections between providers, and training and coaching employees to work on the platform. Within the first month of operation, the platform had paid off.
With over 200 integrated payment providers worldwide, Akurateco constantly develops new payment connectors. The integration of a new payment provider takes two weeks on average. It is convenient for the client to add new connectors required for his business. In the first six months, he has already added ten new connectors.
Need a hand?
If you are looking for a payment solution tailored to your business needs or struggling with some issues regarding payment acceptance that you cannot deal with, get in touch with us. Our experts have over 15 years of experience in online payments. They will gladly answer all your questions, guide you to the right solution, and make calculations tailored to your business.
