Getting your business to the level of Merchant Acquirer is already a significant achievement, but many businesses stop there when in fact there are so many more opportunities left to take advantage of.
Perhaps you started life as an Independent Sales Organisation, secured a Payments Institution (PI) licence to become a Payment Facilitator, and then took the leap to becoming an Acquirer via card scheme membership.
You’ve grown exponentially throughout this cycle and now you’re directly embedded within the payments ecosystem. But there’s still so much more you could do. From diversifying your product to investing in technology, we’ll talk you through the steps you can take to maximise your potential.
Improve Your Card Scheme Offering
You might already have a card scheme membership with one or two major providers like Visa or Mastercard, but there are many more out there from Discover and JCB to Union Pay International and American Express.
More memberships mean more ways for customers to pay your merchants, and eliminating any friction at the point of sale means more transactions and more revenue flowing through your business.
Upgrade Your Financial Licence
A PI licence allows you to hold client funds for a set period, but an Electronic Money (E-Money) licence enables you to hold funds without the need to place it in a payment account.
Interest generated on merchant settlement is a great source of revenue for Acquirers, and holding funds for longer means more interest. What’s more, you’ll also be able to provide E-wallets, offering even more payment opportunities for merchants and their customers.
Diversify Your Currency Offering
For some Acquirers, and even PayFacs, the majority of their revenue can be generated not from transaction fees, but from FX conversion.
By providing multicurrency settlement to merchants, as well as providing FX for single currency settlement, Acquirers can apply exchange markups that are often an accepted part of doing business. Compared to the negotiations often focused around a fee driven model the opportunity becomes clear.
Providing the FX for your merchant settlement isn’t just a service to your merchants—it’s a powerful profit driver.
Expand to Other Payment Schemes
As well as improving your card scheme memberships, membership of payment schemes such as SWIFT, Bacs, and Faster Payments can also have a significant impact on your growth.
Payment scheme membership allows you to offer a wider variety of cross-border options for both incoming and outgoing payment requirements. As a payment scheme member who can hold funds longer-term, you’ve also got the perfect platform to provide even more services for your clients.
Diversify Your Product
When it comes to obtaining, retaining, and upselling your clients, providing value-added services is key. For example, if your merchants can pay their suppliers directly through you rather than having to transfer their funds into their business account first, you’ve cut out the middleman.
Upgrading your card scheme membership to issuing will also allow you to provide your merchants with business debit cards. This not only expands your offering and upselling opportunities, but you’ll also receive some additional revenue in the form of positive interchange.
There are also options to expand into Open Banking, giving your merchants and their customers another innovative and efficient way to pay that’s only going to become more prevalent in the coming years.
Invest in Technology
In any payments model there will always be third-party costs to consider, but a significant amount of that cost can be eliminated by investing in your own technology.
Developing your own payment gateway removes third-party outlay and allows you to offer merchants additional flexibility when it comes to customisation and handling data, while the establishment of your own processing platform means no more processing fees eating into your revenue.
How We Can Help
Whether you’re looking to become a member of more card schemes, become an E-Money Institution, or issue debit cards, AuthoriPay provides expert guidance and comprehensive application support for businesses at any stage of their growth journey.
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