Payments Testing - March 19, 2024
“The pace and the desire of payment companies to modernize their payment platforms and applications is growing. Companies that are focused on their customer and the payment experiences they desire and have the technology to deliver on those experiences will be well suited for the future.”
That’s according to Mark Smith, Head of Payments and Market Development at Amazon Web Services, as quoted in the latest Global Payments 2023 Commerce and Payment Trends Report.
As increasingly sophisticated consumers embrace electronic payments and jump between physical, digital and even virtual worlds - they expect that payment providers will keep up with the pace of change and deliver a seamless, integrated, and frictionless payment experience across any channel, anytime and anywhere.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We’ve all encountered delays and outages when making payments or trying to get cash at an ATM. It’s incredibly frustrating - and sometimes embarrassing - when a payment takes too long or fails to complete properly.
Nobody benefits from these failed transactions, certainly not the consumer who is left stranded at the checkout counter unable to complete a purchase or who is standing staring at an ATM that has just swallowed his or her debit card, and not the payment industry as a whole.
To Amplify This, The Payment Environment Is Becoming Increasingly Complex
Cards, chips, wallets, gateways, networks, government regulations, as well as fraud management and security systems, have combined to make the payment ecosystem an incredibly complex network of connected components that are continually evolving at different speeds.
Given the global scale of the payments fabric and the sheer number of participants, it is understandable that all of the pieces are not moving forward at the same pace.
Everyday, we deal with an incredible mix of new and old systems, applications, processes and procedures, with any individual transaction making a unique round trip from the point of interaction to be authenticated, validated, scored, and authorized before it is sent back to its starting point.
That’s why testing is so important for the payments industry. Ensuring that our collective systems, software, networks, authorization, and security systems operate correctly 24 x 7 x 365 requires that we continually test the performance and capabilities of our payments processing platforms.
The collective goal of all industry participants must be to serve our customers and deliver the best payment experience on every transaction.
It is not surprising that we all do not share the same access to funding, resources or priorities, but if one of us fails to handle our role properly, the customer only perceives that we all failed. And a negative payment experience means we risk losing customers to one of the many alternative options from which they can choose.
In today’s highly competitive landscape where availability, efficiency and accuracy are key, every financial services organization that processes payments - card issuers and acquirers, ATM fleet deployers, payment processors, retailers and e-tailers - must invest in technology to build and maintain a robust, flexible and highly-efficient payment testing platform.
Technology is the Key
In the PYMNTS Executive Insight Series, The Next Three Years, Peter Davey, Senior Vice President and Head of Product Innovation at The Clearing House, said: “There will be a natural progression as institutions and businesses start to collaborate more fully to integrate and automate their systems. Breaking down some of these silos will require some standardization of technology for data sharing. Standardization will lead to further automation of business processes.”
By expanding the use of modern technologies, such as virtualization, cloud computing, automation, continuous delivery and APIs organizations can optimize their payment testing operations and realize a number of key benefits, such as:
- Increased Efficiency and Productivity
- Expanded Test Coverage
- Improved Accuracy
- Faster Time to Market for Products and Services
- Reduced Costs
All of these benefits enhance your ability to deliver a superior consumer experience on every transaction and expand market share, while at the same time improving profitability and enhancing shareholder value.
Not sure which technologies can help your organization improve its payment testing processes? Request a free consultation with Paragon today, and learn how our portfolio of payment testing solutions can help you achieve your business goals.
