As a software developer, working with an integrated payments partner is the easiest and most efficient way to add payment processing to your software. Before you select a payments solutions provider, we recommend asking yourself the questions below to help you make the best decision for your business.

1. What Type of Partnerships Does the Provider Offer?

Partnerships are never one size fits all, every business has different needs, goals and objectives when it comes to their integrated payments program. Look for a partner that offers customized payments programs.  Perhaps your business is ready for a PayFac model, or maybe you prefer to have a straight referral relationship, or you need a program that has the control of PayFac with the flexibility of an ISO setup, either way, choose a partner that has flexible partnership structures you get a fully customized payments program.

2. Does the Provider Understand Your Business, Your Clients, and Their Needs?

Not all payment integrations are created equal.  Ask your integrated payments partner what transaction types and products and services you need to certify to during the integration process so that you have a viable sellable integration. Look for a payments partner that truly understands what your customers need in order to run their business. For example, companies with membership offerings need tokenization, whereas B2B merchants might require Level 2 and Level 3 credit card processing.

3. Is There Reliable Customer Support?

In today’s day and age contracting out core customer support services is a common practice.  Unfortunately, this practice often leads to poor support and frustrated end customers.  When vetting integrated payments partners ask if their support is managed in-house or contracted out.

4. What Sort of Uptime Can You Expect?

There is nothing more frustrating as a merchant than having your payment processing go down!   Make sure to inquire about processing platform uptime.  Stable, reliable uptime (which should be anything over 99.9 percent) is vital for you and your customers.

5. What Are the Capabilities of the Provider’s Solutions?

Choose a payment integration provider with a robust processing platform that has simplified integrations for technologies like tokenization, EMV, and encryption.   It’s important to find a payment partner that has a variety of integration methods and product features so developers can easily and quickly enhance their software, and meet the needs of their customers. As a software provider you should have the option to select from a variety of payment integration APIs to best fit your unique development requirements.

6. Does the Integrated Payments Partner Help Reduce PCI Compliance Requirements?

By now, it’s widely known that merchants who process payment cards are required to adhere to the guidelines imposed by the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). A question on your list should be to ask the potential payments provider what their approach is to PCI compliance. PCI compliance can be complex when navigating solo, your payment partner should take PCI compliance by the reins and steer you away from risks like financial liability, loss of customers and hefty fines.

7. Does the Provider Offer Mobile Payments Capability?

In the modern marketplace, offering mobile payments is no longer optional. Make sure your provider supports this technology.  33% of mobile devices are expected to be used as point of sale terminals by 2021 – is your provider poised to help you go mobile?

8. Can the Provider Help Drive Customer Adoption for Payments?

Completing the payment integration for your software is the easy part.  Getting your customers to use this new feature is where the heavy-lifting comes in.  Your integrated payments partner should provide you with highly customizable marketing programs that result in high customer adoption rates. These types of programs might include email campaigns, outbound call campaigns and co-branded collateral creation services. When a provider offers customized marketing programs, it can help drive customer adoption, reducing your team’s sales burden.

9. Does the Provider Create and Provide In-House Technology or Sell Solutions from Other Sources?

This is a big one.  As you are exploring your integrated payment options you will want to identify upfront how the provider handles their technology.  Are they simply a middle-man? Or do they own their payment processing platform, including the maintenance and the actual code?   Similar to renting vs. owning a house, if your potential payment partner is just a “renter” (middle-man), this means any time you want a feature enhancement, code fix, have processing issues etc. you will not always receive the immediately resolution that you need to keep your customers happy.   We at Paragon prefer to own, not rent.   😉

10. What Sort of Integration Support Does the Partner offer?

Find a provider that will work with you through all development phases to create unique solutions that meet your clients’ needs.  Ask how the integration and account management process works.  During the integration process and beyond, you should be guided by a team of experts that can engage the appropriate resources to ensure the process is streamlined and straightforward, resulting in robust integrated payment processing integration that meets the needs of your customers.