Tackling PayFac: 3 Questions all ISVs and Developers Must Ask Themselves

As the broader economic landscape continues to challenge organizations and enterprises of all sizes, ISVs and developers must consider where there may be blindspots in their software. What are the opportunities that they’re missing? Where might they be losing out on key revenue-building opportunities? 

For many, a monetizing payments integration is ripe territory for potential. These are the three questions that all ISVs and developers must consider to remain competitive and uncover payment integration opportunities:

1. Is payment processing a critical component of my service offering?

Payment processing has become an imperative in today's digital-first landscape. For businesses to remain competitive, a seamless payment experience is critical for merchants and consumers alike. 

For merchants, a simple integration via a Payment Gateway allows payments to be processed by a chosen vendor. Here, there is little opportunity to monetize payments, only to create an effective experience for their customers. The next step that an ISV and a developer can take is owning the payment branding and processing by integrating a product known as payment facilitation or payfac. Now the software creates an integrated experience in terms of a brand for their customers. Along with branding, the ISV can share in the processing revenue. Payfac solutions can be a critical source of revenue generation, allowing ISVs to differentiate their product and service offerings in a crowded space. 

Moreover, integrating a payfac solution into ISV's software removes the need for a merchant to create a relationship outside of the software with acquiring banks or payment gateways. Reducing the number of parties involved in a transaction limits points of friction and frustration for a merchant. Payfac solutions can also add value by improving the overall customer experience by offering solutions that meet a merchant's needs with an all-in-one integration, creating a seamless and efficient experience.  

2. How much of our technology is being handled internally versus being outsourced?

Take a scan of your current software. What are the offerings that you’re managing currently? Where are you outsourcing for support? What are your core service offerings, from Point-of-Sale (POS) payments to ACH and Apple Pay and lending? A robust infrastructure, whether supported internally or externally, is critical to removing barriers, simplifying processes and empowering your end users with the tools and resources to be successful. 

Once you have a clear understanding of where your software starts and where it ends, you can more clearly identify where there may be gaps and missed opportunities to uplevel your offering with the right partner.

3. Who is the right partner to fill gaps and help meet these needs?

Choosing the right partner is business imperative to serve as an extension to your existing software. For payments, it will require a payments partner that is both sophisticated and flexible, empowering you to adapt the technology as needed to meet the demands of your end users. Find a payments provider that can meet you where you are at today. Find a partner that can grow with you and enable you to integrate and add payments and when you are interested in an integrated brandable experience, move you to a payfac experience and then finally onto a full payfac experience where you own risk, all while integrated with the same technology platform.

A payments partner should improve efficiencies, saving time, money - and a headache. The right partner should enhance your software with reporting, data and analytics to draw insights and inform future opportunities and activities. Finally, at the core of these different components is customer experience. Whether powering B2B or B2C transactions, customer experience is critical in today’s business landscape and will win in the challenge of choice.

For ISVs and developers, managing the payments process can often be challenging and cumbersome, and it isn't easy to navigate the increasing challenges of today’s financial ecosystem. Whether you’re building a payments integration or payfac solution, finding the right payments partner is an important investment to consider for any ISV or developer looking to identify and capture revenue opportunities. It’s important to be armed with the information and insight to make the most informed decision for your offering and customers.