Payment infrastructure: Build or buy?

Payoneer answers this question and provides insights to help you make the smart choice for your business. Through the in-depth analysis, you will learn: 

• Advanced payment structures and their core elements 
• Key considerations for all international $250M+ GMV Merchants
• What building a payment engine entails–the resources, who it works for, and common pitfalls 
• What buying a payment orchestration platform entails–the benefits, demonstrative build vs. buy cost calculations, and who it makes sense for.

Here is a summary of the key insights from the ebook.

Core elements of advanced payment infrastructure

Payment infrastructure gets more difficult the more money you make and the more territories your business operates in. Why? Because there are many challenges to cross-border payments. Chief among them is harmonizing the nine core elements of advanced payment infrastructure: 

• Connections
• Fraud Protection
• Smart Routing
• Retry Logic
• Reconciliation
• Analytics
• Payment Pages
• Tokenization 
• Compliance

The only option left to international merchants is to build or buy infrastructure that can handle the demands of the different regions and the increased revenue.

Payments infrastructure: Build or buy?

As a business looking to improve its payment infrastructure, you need to ask yourself the following questions:

• Do you trust your providers? 
• Can you negotiate better terms? 
• Do you have enough expertise and personnel? 
• Can you future-proof your payment setup? 
• Can you safeguard against provider failure? 
• Is speed important in your time-to-market? 
• How complex is your existing environment?

We cover these in detail in our ebook, bringing clarity and actionable steps to your build or buy decision.

Building a payment engine

Any business aiming to build a payment engine will need a realistic budget that accounts for all internal and third-party costs. 

Costs will come from three main areas: data management, IT, and legal. There are also many smaller costs that quickly add up and a build time frame to factor in.  

Before committing to a resource-intensive endeavor like building a payment engine, it is necessary to consider whether you have the resources, a long enough history of high-volume sales, specific bespoke payment needs, etc. 

The ebook also reveals five common pitfalls of building a payment engine, which can greatly impact your choices. 

Buying a payment engine

Your other option is to buy a payment orchestration platform. Many benefits come with leaving the building to a third party–burning through fewer internal resources being the most notable.

But the biggest benefit is the bottom line impacts of buying instead of building:

• Extra revenue: Fewer declined transactions, easier customer journey, etc. 
• Cost savings: Minimal API maintenance, better supplier pricing, etc. 
• Effort savings: Transaction aggregation, smart routing, etc.

Comparing the cost of building and buying by considering the growth rate, transaction costs, and the addition of payment providers every year will also bring some clarity to the true cost of both options. 

Which makes the most sense?

This guide only scratches the surface of the building vs. buying debate.

Get the Payoneer free ebook today to gain financial literacy into the complexity of payment infrastructure for international businesses. Then determine which option is the best for your ambitions. 

Jam-packed with insider knowledge and industry insights, it’s the only guide on payments infrastructure that you will ever need.