Empowering the Future of Commerce: Ingenico and Visa Cybersource's Transformative Partnership

Ingenico's partnership with Cybersource, a Visa solution, provides merchants, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), and acquirers with a comprehensive, unified commerce solution. Today's consumer demands hassle-free payments, connecting effortlessly to the brands they love across all channels. In this article, we will look closer at how the partnership addresses the increased complexities in the payment ecosystem and how it is geared toward empowering the future of commerce. 

Shoppers expect a seamless buying experience as e-commerce behaviours seep into the in-store environment. This shift reflects a broader trend of minimizing friction in the shopping journey, with the recent significant return of buyers to physical stores. The payment experience, too, has transformed significantly, especially with the global rise in cashless transactions as more countries push towards digital payment. 

Today's in-store consumers value the flexibility of using mobile wallets, contactless payments, or even QR codes, all designed to make transactions faster, safer, and more convenient, no matter where they are. Adding value-added services like Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) and loyalty programs enhances the buying experience and empowers businesses to upsell.

Challenges in achieving omnichannel excellence

For players in the payment ecosystem, achieving a true omnichannel experience is not possible without obstacles. It requires integrating multiple payment systems across channels, managing fraud and security across platforms, handling the complexity of data analytics and insights across channels, and ensuring consistent and seamless customer experience. Handling these multiple touchpoints and catering to customers across all platforms is challenging, even for a well-established organization.

These challenges are further compounded by the industry's existing infrastructure and investment imperatives, which often prioritize compliance and cost management over innovation and growth.

• Fragmentation: The payments landscape is highly fragmented, leading to complexity and inefficiency for merchants, acquirers, and ISVs. It requires multiple integrations, complicating the management of payments across different platforms and geographies.
• Technical Complexities: Acquirers and ISVs face significant technical complexities in integrating and maintaining payment systems. This includes managing transaction authorization flow and POS (Point of Sale) device certification, which demands substantial resources and technical expertise.
• Slow Time to Market: The need for extensive integrations and certifications delays the introduction of new payment solutions to the market. This slow time to market hinders businesses from quickly adapting to changing consumer preferences and emerging market opportunities.
• Lack of Omni-channel Capabilities: There is a growing need for seamless omni-channel payment solutions that integrate in-store (Card-present) and online (Card-not-present) transactions. The current ecosystem often lacks a unified commerce experience that aligns with evolving business and consumer needs.
• Security Concerns: Ensuring robust security in payment transactions remains a critical challenge. Businesses must navigate the complexities of securing payment data while complying with regulatory standards.
• Operational Inefficiencies:  Fragmentation in the payments ecosystem contributes to operational inefficiencies as businesses need to manage payment processes on multiple platforms. It increases costs, complexity, and resource allocation challenges that hinder growth and innovation.
• Scalability Issues: Scalability is a significant concern for ISVs and merchants looking to expand their services across geographies. The need to rebuild applications for each acquirer in every market adds to the complexity and hampers scalability.

These challenges highlight the need for a single-point, unified commerce solution to streamline payment processes, enhance security, and offer a seamless, scalable platform for acquirers, ISVs, and merchants.

Addressing them requires a strategic approach emphasizing partnerships and industry collaboration to drive payment innovation and achieve a seamless omnichannel experience.

The Ingenico and Cybersource unified solution

The Ingenico and Cybersource partnership addresses these needs head-on by offering a unified commerce solution that integrates Ingenico's Axium payment acceptance platform with Cybersource's open payment platform to streamline and enhance payment processing. 

The combined solution saves time and cost and enables businesses to scale quickly across multiple geographies. It also provides access to the payment and commerce ecosystem and value-added services from two established companies with expansive global reach.

The AXIUM advantage

At the heart of this partnership is Ingenico's Axium platform, a range of advanced smart Point-of-Sale (POS) terminals running entirely on Android. The platform also has a suite of business applications, robust security, and comprehensive customer support.

Ingenico's payment application is now pre-integrated with Cybersource Card Present Connect APIs, providing a ready-to-use payment application that is portable across different AXIUM devices. This allows for easy scaling without lengthy certification processes for each new device.

Game-changing solution for all parties

The strategic collaboration embodies the shift towards a more efficient, secure, and customer-centric payments ecosystem.

For acquirers, streamlining integrations and eliminating the need for authorization flow development at the acquirer host can significantly enhance the efficiency of payment processes. Coupled with a secure, resilient, and compliant platform, it ensures a reliable and uninterrupted service. The platform's vast partner ecosystem is also a valuable asset that supports expansion into new merchant segments. This combination of streamlined operations, high reliability, and expansive growth opportunities positions it as a powerful tool for businesses looking to optimize payment processes and expand their market reach.

The unified solution also serves as an alternative and dependable route for processing transactions, a vital component of an organization's redundancy and resilience plan. It can reduce risk and ensure operational stability, especially during unexpected downtimes.

For ISVs, a platform offering streamlined L3 certification with a pre-built and certified core payment application is a game-changer. It not only simplifies the certification process but also ensures compliance with industry standards. The platform's scalability across multiple acquirers contributes to a faster time to market, a crucial aspect in today's fast-paced business environment. Such a platform can significantly ease the operational burden for technology partners and ISVs, enabling them to focus more on innovation and less on administrative tasks.

For merchants, a unified commerce platform offers a consistent customer experience across channels. Its scalability supports expansion across different markets and geographies. The platform's global presence and partnerships further foster growth, making it a comprehensive solution for enhancing customer engagement through innovation and driving business expansion. 

Furthermore, merchants do not need to build different applications for each acquirer in every market, leading to shorter time-to-market entry to other geographies. They can also leverage Ingenico's managed service solutions with a strong regional presence and global partnerships​.

A leap towards future-proof commerce

The Ingenico and Cybersource partnership goes beyond addressing current challenges in the payments industry. It lays the groundwork for future innovations toward an efficient and more connected commerce ecosystem.

This visionary approach ensures that all stakeholders are well-equipped to meet the demands of the future digital economy, empower businesses, and redefine the global commerce experience.