The term “integrated payment solutions” has been around for a while and generally refers to connecting different parts of the payment process to create a smoother customer experience and improve backend efficiency.
Initially, this term was used by point-of-sale (POS) companies to describe how their systems could be seamlessly integrated with a merchant’s backend, making payment processing faster and more efficient.
With the rise of ecommerce, integrated payment solutions evolved to describe online checkout systems embedded directly into a merchant’s website rather than redirecting customers to a third-party payment gateway. The goal remained the same: to streamline the payment process.
Today, many payment service providers (PSPs) use the term to describe their all-in-one solutions. However, few merchants rely on just one PSP for all their needs, so their payment systems are anything but integrated.
That means it’s time for us to redefine “integrated payment solutions” again.
What are integrated payments?
At Primer, when we talk about an integrated payment solution, we’re referring to the process of unifying a merchant’s various payment services—such as payment methods, PSPs, and fraud prevention tools—into one cohesive platform.
However, achieving integration goes beyond merely connecting these services; it’s also about ensuring that data flows seamlessly from start to finish. This means translating each payment service’s “language” into a single, unified language that everyone in a business can understand and work with.
Since payments today are anything but a siloed back-end process, the concept of an integrated payment solution should also extend beyond payments. It should enable merchants to integrate payments seamlessly with tools like CRMs, marketing automation, inventory management, and accounting software.
Why should merchants adopt an integrated payments solution?
Payments are more than just transactions; they can significantly impact a business’s bottom line. An integrated payment solution should offer merchants the optionality, flexibility, and freedom to leverage payments as a valuable asset that drives business success. Here’s how it achieves this:
Efficiency
With an integrated payment solution, businesses can create payment workflows using clicks instead of code. This not only saves significant time but also enables businesses to automate and streamline their payment processes.
Performance
The freedom and flexibility to choose the best payment services for each market and to create complex workflows for optimal payment routing allow merchants to enhance payment performance, which leads to increased revenue.
ROI
An integrated payment solution can help merchants reduce the cost of maintaining a disparate range of payment services. It also provides the freedom to utilize additional payment services, such as local acquiring, which can lower the overall cost of payment processing. More importantly, it allows businesses to start using payments as a revenue driver, realizing substantial ROI from their investment in payments.
Take a look at our ROI calculator to learn more.
Have merchants realized those benefits?
For the past decade, businesses have had little choice but to cobble together an increasing number of payment services. Few have managed to do this effectively, and it’s clear why: payments aren’t their core competency, nor should they be. This is one reason why 79% of merchants say their technology stack needs a major update or complete overhaul.
How Primer delivers a truly integrated payment solution
Payments often get overlooked, especially when engineering resources are limited. With rapid advancements in payment technology, it’s nearly impossible for most businesses to keep pace and lead in this area.
We built Primer to change that.
As a Unified Payments Infrastructure, we provide merchants with a fully integrated payment solution that allows them to control their payment roadmap and unlock their payment potential.
Using Primer merchants can:
- Unify payment services: Combine all payment processors, methods, and fraud prevention tools into one platform, allowing merchants to build their optimal payment stack without compromise.
- Improve performance: Utilize smart routing, network tokens, and more to deliver performance improvements that realize more revenue.
- Gain insights: Access a comprehensive view of payment performance and powerful analytics to make informed, data-driven decisions.
- Simplify operations: You can more easily manage reconciliation, refunds, and chargebacks and optimize critical KPIs such as processors and transaction fees.
- Enhance security: Optimize the usage of 3D Secure and integrate with specialist third-party fraud prevention services to secure every transaction while minimizing customer friction.
- Enable new payment methods: Quickly add new payment options like digital wallets without additional backend complexity.
- Connect seamlessly: Integrate with essential software platforms like inventory management and marketing automation, turning payments into a strategic asset for the business.
Final thoughts
When it comes to payments, merchants need to embrace change to fully capitalize on their potential.
It’s not enough to view payments as a mere operational task; they should be seen as a driving force that creates value for the business.
Integration is just the beginning. To truly benefit from effective payment management, merchants should focus on unifying their payment systems rather than integrating them.
Primer’s Unified Payments Infrastructure offers a transformative approach, positioning payments as the heartbeat of the business. With this unified solution, teams across the organization can strategically leverage payments to optimize operations, drive innovation, and accelerate growth.
That’s the future we’re building at Primer.
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