Recently a number of ecommerce merchants and traditional companies have asked us, “Can I just outsource ALL of my payment processing? I’ve had it!”
At first we suspected that these requests were driven by PCI compliance concerns. As it turns out that’s only a small part of the motivation.
Companies are reacting to ever increasing payment complexity – multiple gateways, interfaces to numerous internal systems, complications due to new payment types/methods in order to transact internationally, a proliferation of data standards, and new regulations (e.g. IAT). The on-going IT maintenance costs are motivation enough, let alone the business process confusion.
My colleague Allen Weinberg has coined the phrase PaaS – “Payments as a Service” to describe this.
Here at Glenbrook we’re debating what exactly it means – hosted order pages have been around since Day 1 of ecommerce, and are still being used by smaller merchants – but is PaaS more than that? After all, the payment itself is just one small component of the order-to- cash or purchase-to-pay process. What about fraud analysis, subscription support, chargebacks and ACH administrative return exception processing?
If you were to buy Payments as a Service – which processes, services, and/or functions would be included in your dream solution? Let us know in the comments.
During her time at Glenbrook, Erin focused on client engagements in business payments, cross-border transactions, bill payment, and the intersection of corporate finance, banking, and ERP/accounting. She has nearly twenty years of experience leading increasingly complex payment initiatives for corporate clients and advising financial institutions and payment technologists on the development of their payment capabilities.
Erin is also the founder of Forte Financial, a consulting firm focused on corporate finance efficiency, technology, and process improvement. She is a past president of the Financial Women’s Association of San Francisco and also a two-term past president of the San Francisco Treasury Management Association. Erin is no longer with Glenbrook, but contributed greatly during her time at the firm.