Whether built or bought, a payment switch solution for large e-commerce websites must be perfectly designed in order to achieve desired results. If you are looking for a solution for your business, here is a post where you can learn more about the payment switch infrastructure and its various stages, which will hopefully help you choose the best solution.

The first stage of the payment switch infrastructure is Single Integration Flow. At this stage, new payment channels are added with no changes in your code while keeping the checkout experience completely customizable. The same abstractions are used for all transactions, whether they’re pre-payments or post-payments, payins, payouts, synchronous, one-time or recurring, marketplaces, or redirection-based.

The second stage is Access to Multiple Financial Institutions. This stage helps in having instant access to any financial institution with no technical investments in the future. You’re able to accept alternative payment methods, gain negotiation power, and become developer-independent.

What comes next in this infrastructure are Custom Payment Methods. Created abstractions support a myriad of payment flows which also allow custom setups authorization. These include financial transaction such as virtual value such as Coupons and Loyalty and POS and Private Label schemes. At this stage, complex transaction flows are designed on top of the Switch platform and standard and custom payment channels through a single data structure are managed.

The fourth stage includes Lifecycle Events.

A payment switch uses a database to log each transaction-related action. What makes a switch a great platform for transaction arrangement between different stakeholders is that its lifecycle events can be communicated in real-time through HTTP callbacks to specific URLs. Every lifecycle event can be used up by many participants, being published into the Switch platform by various sources. It is possible to reuse the existing processing channels to access value-added services like Reconciliation, Anti-Fraud, and Analytics.

Automating and optimizing

Reconciliation follows lifecycle events. Switch platforms automate the process of reconciliation for easier control of fee variations across markets and providers, commissions, and settlements. This stage automates bookkeeping, monitors commission variations at a transaction level, and tracks outstanding payments.

Dynamic Routing is used to optimize payments performance by using custom rules for transaction routing between payment providers. Authorizations are retried across different acquirers in real-time in order to maximize acceptance rates and split traffic to reduce processing and FX rates.

The seventh stage in a switch is Fraud Management. It uses different fraud and security providers to scan signals, detect and block fraud. You can also design specific rules to reflect considerations of your business. The switch allows you to implement Dynamic 3DS, define custom blocking rules, connect your favorite fraud services, and receive automated alerts.

In Analytics, as the next stage, the switch uses big data technologies to process complex and numerous datasets. It translates data into accessible information and creates valuable insights so the payment managers can make better decisions. Analytics provide monitor commissions, automate reconciliation, and gain operation insights.

To improve strategic analysis, monitoring, and making decisions, switches provide analysis tools and interactive data visualization to detect trends for additional insight into payment flows and comprehensive reporting capabilities.

Omni Channel comes as the tenth stage. To deliver the best shopping experience, both in-store and online, this stage in the switch architecture helps support payment processing for all terminal flows. Finally, compliance, resilience, and support come as the last stage. It helps protect customers’ data using PCI/GDPR compliant payments infrastructure, allows payment operation scaling using its resilient infrastructure, and uses management support to connect with the best providers for better optimization of a payment operation.