e-Commerce Payments: 5 Ways to reduce costs

Payment gateway solutions bridge the gap between merchants and acquirers. Only truly independent gateways are able to search for the least-cost acquirer at the time of the transaction.

To save money on each transaction merchants can now access new payment gateway functionality to allow least-cost routing for online and contact centre transactions. Choosing a dynamic acquirer solution that selects the least-cost option each time, means faster, cost-effective payments which ultimately means improved cashflow.

The faster the transaction process happens, the quicker the payment can be approved by the card issuer and acquirer and settlement is confirmed. Choosing the right payment services gateway, in association with PCI DSS compliant payment solutions, helps ensure a frictionless, secure process. Integration with open banking services also provides more payment choices for the customer, which is increasingly important in a competitive market.

With fraud on the increase, today’s customers want to be assured that every transaction is secure. For the merchant this means being PCI DSS compliant and adherence to the Payment Services Directive (PSD2) and the latest Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) regulations. SCA is now mandatory (since March 2022) and provides customers with the extra layer of security to help make card payments safer. My next article will outline how SCA is working for merchants and customers alike in tackling fraud.

Gateway services solutions must provide both a robust infrastructure and ensure compliance and security assurance. A secure token vault can help to safely store card data, while additional protection from fraud can also be provided with a solution like Encoded’s Fraud Prevention Platform (FPP). FPP helps to improve conversion rates and customer service in contact centres when combined with Encoded’s Agent Assisted Payments. Agents can advise the customer that an additional level of validation is required when a payment is declined. Using Gov.uk Verify, 3D secure or Open Authorisation (OAUTH) to prevent fraud helps increase successful transactions.

Choosing the right payment solutions will facilitate secure, faster customer transactions, improve the customer experience and can help to keep your development team happy. Selecting a technology platform with a developer friendly API and that enables user acceptance testing (UAT) and test environments means smoother, cost effective integration and implementation enough to make any developer smile.

With Encoded’s Gateway Services, seamless integration with other Encoded payment solutions such as Agent Assisted payments, IVR and PaybyLink can also reduce overall costs and improve CX.

To offer the best consumer experience merchants want their e-commerce payment pages to reflect their company’s look and feel. It’s important to choose a solution that (using Hosted Payment Fields) gives developers (and merchants) control of their e-commerce pages. It helps avoid customer confusion by providing consistent branding and means changes can be made easily at any time.

Before you choose your gateway services solution put these five criteria on your shopping list. With robust, reliable technology solutions that are secure, compliant and work together to deliver the best possible customer experience – you can ensure every transaction is a profitable one.