How Your Business Can Stay on Top of the Race with Omnichannel Payments
Every business wants to be a crowd pleaser, the first winner in the highly competitive marathon that we call the market. Your best bet of winning the market in this modern era is by providing as many payment channels as possible. This is the concept of omnichannel payments where a merchant can accept multiple payments at once, from cash to credit cards, QR pay to phone numbers.
One solution to implement the omnichannel payment system in your business is payment gateway. Business owners are searching for convenience to accept different payment methods without much effort, time, and money. This is what payment gateway can provide. In other words, payment gateway is selling the service of convenience for both merchants and customers.
What most people have yet to understand is the long and dull process of integrating the payment channel to your business system. Nowadays, customers expect merchants to accept payments via credit card, debit card, QR pay, direct debit, virtual account, and many more. Not to mention the dozens of banks and e-wallet providers available. The greatest obstacle that you must face is integrating each payment channel by yourself.
Let’s say that you’re an online business owner who wants to accept payment via money transfer from Bank XY. Then, you have to contact and create a deal with said bank (which takes several weeks), wait for the integration process for another month, perform testing, and so on. By the time you realize, it’s already past 3 months and you still have to integrate 3 other payment channels. How stressful it can be to do it one by one, redoing the whole process every time. Enter the payment gateway that gives you a single API to seamlessly integrate all payment channels in one string of process.
With the help of a payment gateway, your business can run more efficiently and effectively. You can attract more customers and cut down costs, especially Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) charges. Basically, every merchant has what is called an acquirer and the customer has an issuer. Acquirer is a bank that processes each payment on behalf of the merchant, whereas an issuer is the bank that issues the card used by the customer.
For example, if a merchant with Bank XY as the acquirer accepts credit card payment issued by Bank AZ (switching), then there will be an MDR charge. Payment gateway allows you to skip the MDR to card scheme and acquirer, as long as the acquirer and issuer banks are identical. Therefore, we encourage merchants to have numerous alternative acquirer banks to cut more costs. Easy, right?
So, how does this payment gateway work and is it safe for your business? I can’t answer that on behalf of all existing payment gateways, but I can explain to you from my experience at Midtrans. Concisely, this is the payment flow when using Midtrans:
1. Card information input to the merchant.
2. Card information sent to Midtrans.
3. Card information forwarded to the card scheme (Visa/Mastercard).
4. 3D Secure process → this is when a customer enters an OTP code sent by the issuer bank.
5. Midtrans sends the payment request to the acquirer and card scheme.
6. Payment request forwarded to issuer for validation.
7. Transaction done.
Long story short, the merchant only needs to accept orders from customers, prepare the products, and send them to the customers. They can focus on what matters for their business. Moreover, Midtrans prioritizes privacy and security in each transaction. We hold the PCI DSS Level 1, the highest level there is for card payments, and ISO 207001 to ensure our clients that Midtrans is highly secured.
In the end, we at Midtrans aim to keep innovating for the growth of our clients’ businesses. With the ever growing trend of cashless society, I have high expectations on the future of payment gateway and SMEs culture. No matter the obstacles, we can go far as long as we go together.
