Meet the Qontoers behind Apple Pay and Google Pay

Have you ever been in a restaurant and, while sinking your teeth into a succulent meal, wondered about all the workers involved in bringing that food to your plate, from the farmer to the waiter?

There are those of us at Qonto with such curious minds, and we thought some of you might be interested to come behind the scenes and learn exactly how our services arrive at your fingertips. As you’ll see, it’s a case of “many hands make light work!”

We’d therefore like to invite you to meet those involved in bringing Apple Pay and Google Pay to your Qonto cards!

Dimitri Gougoulis

The first step in a project of this nature is reaching out to partners and agreeing on the project’s scope, contracts, and integrations. This is where Dimitri shines. He has handled the relationship between Qonto and Mastercard for years, and has worked on a number of large integrations, such as international transfers.

We asked Dimitri how this effort compares to previous projects he’s worked on and what his particular role was in this challenge:

“The Apple Pay and Google Pay projects distinguished themselves from other projects we usually run at Qonto in the fact that it required interactions with a high (and unusual) number of external partners.

The first decision we had to make was choosing the best platform to connect to in order to offer Apple Pay and Google Pay to our users in the best timeframe.

After listing all our options and weighing the pros and cons, we decided that the best choice was to partner with Monext, our current card processor; our teams already know each other, the platform’s reliability is proven and it avoids adding extra layers of complexity with another partner as, in any case, our processor would have been in the loop for the authorization part.

As Qonto is a Mastercard affiliate, we also had to liaise with Arkéa (Principal Member) in order to open all the necessary projects involved with the scheme.

In addition to that, we had of course to agree and formalize the scope of our project with the Wallet providers (this step was a pre-requisite in order to move forward with Mastercard and get all the documentation necessary).

During the project phase, my role was to be in constant interaction with all the key stakeholders in order to ensure that:

• Qonto was meeting all the launch requirements defined by Apple and Google (technical, product, marketing, customer service, design…)
• All project contributors were working at the same pace and that all the teams had the right level of information to deliver the best experience for our users

The last piece of the project on our side was the validation of our set-up by a certified and independent firm (this is only an Apple requirement but we decided to run the assessment for Google as well). With our partner and product teams, we conducted an intensive set of tests (+100 items for each wallet provider) that allowed us to launch with confidence and offer the feature to 150,000 business clients over four markets.”

Thaddée Tyl

At Qonto, we involve the engineering team at an early stage. That helps to identify the main challenges to tackle, and can outline issues that might otherwise have been missed. As a Core Banking Expert, Thaddée bridges the gap between project management and development on efforts of this scale.

Thaddée, what did it involve on a day-to-day basis?

“A fair chunk of the work is ensuring efficient collaboration. Many teams are involved: iOS and Android, obviously, but also backend, SRE, security, and of course customer support, ops, and marketing, to ensure a smooth release day.

I went through our partners’ technical documentation so each team had the most precise and succinct information possible to achieve their task, and tested the interfaces our partners developed ahead of our integration. I also worked with the development teams to agree on a schedule through which everyone could fit their piece of the puzzle in good order.

It does not stop there, as I also worked with our partners’ teams to investigate and ensure they cooperated in their respective integrations.

I’ll mention a quick anecdote: for a couple of weeks, our tests showed that the integration between our card processor and Mastercard had an issue, but they struggled to find the reason. I chased down the logs along the whole chain, all the way to what Apple sent to Mastercard. Along the way, I verified whether a particular cryptographic payload checked out at each step. Eventually, I found the misconfiguration which our partner reset, solving the issue.”

Ari Lesniak

Qonto prides itself on being driven by the customer. Ensuring a great user experience is what Ari oversaw as Product Manager.

Ari, what product decisions did you make during the project?

“At first glance it might seem like Apple Pay and Google Pay are simple projects from a product management standpoint. Since the experience has already been designed, it may appear that all that has to be done is plug Apple Pay or Google Pay into your app and make sure there are no bugs. However, after deeper analysis, it was clear there were some important ways that product decisions and creativity would be key in really making the feature shine. At Qonto we always look for ways to add a ‘wow’ factor, known internally as “+ alpha”. For Apple Pay and Google Pay this was one of the most important ways we used to differentiate our offering.

Apple’s ecosystem of products is incredibly well connected, and we decided that it was important to embrace all the products that could take advantage of Apple Pay. When you first navigate to your card in the Qonto app, you are offered the chance to add your card to your Apple Wallet. Where the “+ alpha” comes in is that once you have added your card to your phone wallet, and if you have an Apple Watch synced with your phone, we will then change the button to read “Add to Apple Watch”. While this is a small change, for those who have an Apple Watch, it is a pleasant surprise that leaves a lasting impression.

Qonto knows that ensuring clear feedback to users is key to a delightful, seamless and satisfying user experience. With Apple Pay and Google Pay, as users go through their card enrolment, they are brought into the world of Apple or Google within the Qonto app. While they provide a screen letting users know their card has been added successfully, we wanted to have a clean flow back into the world of Qonto. We added our own success screen after both Apple’s and Google’s and on it added an animation of a checkmark with haptic feedback. The visual plus sensory recognition of success helps users know that everything is okay on Qonto’s side and they are brought smoothly back to the app to continue any of their other banking needs.”

Denis Dubo-Chevalier

A surprisingly large part of the iceberg requires hooking up the backend systems, both with partners and internally with our mobile-facing APIs. Denis developed the integrations and interfaces that made Apple Pay tick.

Denis, what systems were involved?

“The responsibility of the backend for Apple Pay and Google Pay is multiple: I had to implement new extensions in our ISO8583, the payment authorization protocol connected to the card network, in order to support Apple Pay and Google Pay card registration and authorization. Apple and Google sent us a lot of new information to help us secure the process and provide the user with a safe and reliable service.

I designed and built a new micro-service to handle this new data. It enables us, upon card registration, to decide whether we do it immediately, ask for an OTP, or refuse it (in case of a stolen card for instance).

I also implemented callbacks with our card processor to handle the lifetime of a card registered with Apple Pay or Google Pay as well as some of the OTP mechanisms. This involved designing and documenting new APIs between our services, and implementing our providers’ APIs.”

How did you handle the API work with mobile teams?

“To ensure that the mobile teams would be able to start implementing their part early, I worked first on designing our APIs with them and offered them an OpenAPI specification that they could trust. They challenged it during its conception so that we could start the development process having reached a consensus.

As I implemented the backend part, I wrote automated tests based on this spec to ensure we followed it correctly. And at the end of the development process, we organized test sessions with mobile teams to ensure that everything went as expected.”

Jordan Tête

Of course, a major part of Apple Pay is in the app. Jordan works on the iOS app, and strives for a smooth, consistent and intuitive user interface.

Jordan, what were some of the subtle issues you had to address?

”To make Apple Pay a reality for our clients at Qonto, we had to follow strict product and design guidelines from Apple but also ensure that it will keep the Qonto iOS experience intuitive. We have worked hand in hand with the Apple teams throughout the development phase of this feature to be certain that all their specifications would be met.

If the Apple documentation has helped us a lot in offering our users the possibility to use their Qonto cards through Apple Pay, some edge cases required special attention on our part. This is the case when we decided to push the integration of this feature to the point of telling the user on what type of device they could add their card to Apple Pay. We had to develop an in-house algorithm using PassKit APIs to take into account all eventualities and update our UI accordingly.

Finally, we made sure to have a code coverage above 80% for this feature as well as functional tests covering all possible scenarios.”

Ghita Sqalli

Finally, ensuring proper communication and a precise description of the product that matches our partners’ expectations is what Ghita handled as Product Marketing Manager.

Ghita, how did you work with the other teams to reach those goals?

“It was key for us to convey an impactful message to drive the launch of Apple Pay and Google Pay, as they were highly requested by our customers. Our Tech & Product teams had worked to create a great product, and our job as PMMs was to make it shine. Here are the main steps we went through to make that happen:

1. Understand the customer and the product

The first part of the work was to find out why our customers needed Apple Pay and Google Pay, and which problems these solutions would solve for them. I used the customer research and interviews conducted by the Product team and gathered our customers’ main drivers, what we call the “user preferences”. It was also key to get a good understanding of the product from top to bottom, to ensure we communicated it in the best way. For Google Pay for instance, I sat down with Ari, the Product Manager, and created an internal guide on how to install and use it. This was the basis that I would use to later train our Customer Support team on this new feature, as well as create the FAQs you can now find on the Qonto website and Support Center.

2. Align Qonto teams on the communication plan

With a solid understanding of the customers’ needs and how the product worked, I was ready to start crafting the messages and value proposition that would form the basis of our communication around these features. The value proposition had to solve the customer’s problems while conveying the benefits, and of course be appealing! It also had to be consistent with Apple and Google’s overall brand guidelines, which they communicated to us when we started working together. I then aligned with our Marketing and Acquisition teams to create an action plan detailing the different communications channels that would carry our message. We had to get both the message and communications plan validated by Apple and Google, ensuring there would be no conflict between the two services. I worked with Dimitri from the Strategic Projects team throughout the entire duration of the project to align and get a good understanding of the project and its requirements.

3. Produce all content and put it live

Once the communications plan was shared internally and validated by all stakeholders, we started work with the CRM, Design, Marketing, Customer Support and International teams (amongst others), to produce each piece of content. Whether it was a landing page, a blog post, an email or an FAQ, it involved many stakeholders and needed to be impactful for our users.

4. Measure the impact

After pushing all content live on launch day, we started tracking the impact of our communication and how our customers were using the product. This way we were able to learn how to improve for future launches and share these insights with the other teams.”

Simple payments but a detailed process

Even the simplest ideas can require sophisticated cooperation. Everyone’s expertise comes into play to make sure that your experience is effortless. As our tour behind the scenes reveals, there are numerous invisible subtleties behind the simplicity of the feature, from marketing metrics to cryptography, from contractual relationships to proper handling of in-watch card enrollment.

About Qonto

Qonto is a finance solution designed for SMEs and freelancers founded in 2016 by Steve Anavi and Alexandre Prot. Since our launch in July 2017, Qonto has made business financing easy for more than 150,000 companies.

Business owners save time thanks to Qonto’s streamlined account set-up, an intuitive day-to-day user experience with unlimited transaction history, accounting exports, and a practical expense management feature.

They have have more control, whilst being able to give their teams autonomy via real-time notifications and a user-rights management system.

They have improved visibility on cash-flows through tools such as smart dashboards, transaction auto-tagging, and cash-flow monitoring.

They also enjoy stellar customer support at a fair and transparent price.

Interested in joining a challenging and game-changing company? Consult our job offers!