TOOLBOX: INTEGRATIONS

Key Takeaways

* No single payment source nor provider has complete dominance in any market
* Though well adopted, local payment sources support a wide array of standards
* There are very many payment sources, with more coming (and some going)
* It’s expensive to integrate, manage and maintain the connections
* We specialise in integrating multiple payment sources into a single API
* Our API supports web browsers, mobi browsers and terminals

Overview

Atomicat provides online vendors with a simple, single interface to unlock many new payment methods found in emerging markets. Our services allows merchants and payment service providers (PSPs) to either compliment or standardise their existing payment acquiring and includes local mobile monies and wallets.

Atomicat collects together various mobile wallets and presents them to our merchants in a single API. This allows merchants and PSPs access to many payment sources, currencies and new markets. This also allows their customers to use the payment source they prefer or are familiar with in making a payment.

Atomicat is not an App, developers and merchants integrate the API into their App or website directly. Consumers do not need to sign up for Atomicat, they self select the payment source they wish to use.

The underlying technologies of these mobile payment systems can cover a vast array of proprietary forms while simultaneously evolving quickly. The payment landscape is made of hundreds of fast moving targets.

We specialise in aggregating all of these types into single access platforms, we normalise their functions so as to make them uniform, we translate between extremely different classes of architecture at various levels of advancement, we are able to present a large number of these newer payment sources together with more traditional payment sources into whole new data environments.

Engagement Process

* The merchant needs to contract the payments sources directly. There are AML and compliance requirements in every country.
* The merchant's OEM integrates into our API set. This makes all of these methods directly available to the merchant's customers in a variety of formats.
* The merchant elects the format methodologies to be used (e.g. QR Codes, USSD, WAP, Web, Bank Cards etc.).
* The payment source settle the merchant directly. We do not move the money.
* You cannot just switch on. We validate, integrate and release the merchant integration into our API set.

Important Note – The OEM or other service providers cannot contract payment sources on behalf of the merchant. The merchant is generally required the relevant Central Banks to contract payments directly.

Mobile Payment Methods

We are able to connect to dozens of local payment sources. Though many, they sort into the following general types we make available to our Merchants:

* Mobile money is a fast growing payment type and is offered by local banks, mobile network operators or a combination of both. Acquiring fees are in line with standard credit card fees leaning to cheaper, but the technology is not standard to payment gateways. The monthly settlements are guaranteed. There are a fantastic variety available in emerging markets.

* Prepaid or street vouchers have high acquiring fees as street online Merchants who sell them make their revenue this way, but they are very well distributed and familiar. The settlements are guaranteed but monthly. They are ideal for credit recharges where the Merchant allows consumers to charge a purse in their shop and use that over time.

* Credit Card Acquiring for bank cards. We work with major Payment Service Providers (PSPs) and Third Party Providers (TPPs) that specialise in high risk online card acquiring for VISA, MasterCard, JCB and CUP for MOTO, Non-3D Secure and 3D Secure and support all major payment gateway technologies, including S1, Base EPS and MIGs.

Five Myths

There are 5 key myths to dispel before we proceed.

1. Unregulated Markets - There are no unregulated mobile monies nor vouchers in any country. In most cases, they may have additional rules in their use as per their government and/or central bank rules.

2. Go Without - Credit, debit and prepaid card distribution may be on the rise, but by ignoring the new instruments like mobile monies and vouchers a merchant substantially decreases the amount of the market accessible.

3. A Few Keys Unlock Anything - a payment instrument may have the same “go to market” brand name in various countries, but is unlikely to be using the same underlying technologies.

4. It's Not Familiar - In our markets our consumers are extremely well versed and sophisticated in using their local payment sources. In many cases our merchants come from developed markets where mobile payments are less widespread and primitive.

5. Tax Free - Unlike e-commerce, there is no way to legally avoid paying sales taxes in the market where the payment is being collected from. Any promise to the contrary is misleading.

Formal Payments

We mentioned above that no merchant should go without the new kinds of payment instruments. Equally, merchants should not ignore card processing. It is prudent and pragmatic for merchants to ensure that they are able to take VISA and MasterCard payments online in a card not present 3d secure configuration priced for high risk acquiring and additional fraud and suspicious transaction management.

Our markets have a base of consumers who use Credit Cards, Debit Cards, Prepaid Cards associated with VISA, MasterCard, JCB or CUP.

How We Work

We provide a platform of integrations to both traditional and non-traditional payment sources (Mobile Monies, Street Vouchers etc. That means the merchant signs up with the payment source directly, collects the API if we don't have it already and we provide a central, aggregation technology to deal with the various new forms of money.

All a merchant has to do is sign our Software as a Service Agreement (SaaS Agreement) and we bill them our set fee or a percentage of the Gross amount switched for every transaction we run through on the merchant's behalf. The payment sources charge the merchant the acquiring fee directly and settle them directly.

A merchant does not need to give us their due diligence pack, what we need from them is a signed SaaS Agreement, the API (if it's a payment source we don't have) and their merchant credentials for that payment source. We take care of the technical work from there and deliver the merchant a single payment page where all of the payment sources are normalised, available to consumers and very easy to manage in their OEM software.

Tasks

* Merchant - contract payment sources and gather API or pseudo API methodology
* Atomicat - test the APIs for technical compatibility
* Merchant - contract Atomicat on a SaaS Agreement
* Atomicat - we integrate, normalise and provide an API set to the OEM
* OEM - integrate the API for different cases as needed
* OEM - can integrate the API in sandbox now already, payment sources will be added
* Merchant - provides us with a credential per payment source to go live