Payment, long perceived as a necessary evil 

Payment on an e-commerce site was long considered a technical component to be managed, viewed as a constraint because it was outsourced and difficult to control. Its management was entrusted to a duo: the IT department for the technical side and the purchasing manager to negotiate the contract. 

But this paradigm has shifted. Merchants have realized that implementing a payment strategy for their e-commerce business is now essential. Payment is no longer just an operational obligation; it has become a differentiating factor in the customer experience and site performance. 

We are witnessing this transformation: merchants no longer want to endure their payments but to steer them. They are becoming more professional, building expertise in the field, and seeking to achieve true independence from their PSP, rather than blindly entrusting management to a single provider.
This quest for independence marks the beginning of a new approach: merchants are fundamentally rethinking their relationship with PSPs. 

The turning point: why merchants are rethinking their payment approach

The changing market landscape

Let’s take a step back and compare consumer habits from the 2010s to today. It is radically different.
In the past, customers had no choice. They expected to be redirected to an austere payment page and to pull out their bank card to finalize their purchase.

Today, consumers want a transparent, seamless, fast payment journey that is perfectly adapted to their purchasing context. The famous frictionless experience.

Merchants must constantly adapt and evolve their payment solutions to meet these expectations: 

• Local payment methods for an international clientele (Bizum, iDeal, Bancontact, Redsys, etc.). 
• BNPL solutions for high-value baskets (Oney, Alma, Cofidis, etc.).  
• Wallets to facilitate mobile payments. According to Fevad, 63% of e-commerce payments in 2023 were made on mobile devices. Solutions like Apple Pay and Google Pay have seen explosive adoption. 
• Open banking solutions to secure and streamline certain payments through strong authentication directly via the customer's bank. 

Faced with this diversity and the speed of change, merchants who rely on a single PSP find their choices constrained. 

What are the limitations of the single-PSP model?

Every PSP has its strengths and specificities, but no single player can guarantee optimal coverage for all markets, all payment methods, and all situations on its own. While a single provider may seem simpler to manage at first, this approach quickly reveals its weaknesses.

The main limitations for merchants are: 

• Variable acceptance rates: depending on the country, local banks, or card types, some PSPs perform better than others. A transaction may be declined by one PSP but accepted by another that has more precise relevance in a given market. Relying on a single provider limits performance, with a direct impact on the acceptance rate. 
• Difficulty innovating quickly: e-merchants are entirely dependent on their provider's product roadmap. They must wait for updates, the integration of new payment methods, and technical fixes, without being able to take direct action. 
• Technical dependency: in the event of an outage or temporary performance issues, there is no plan B, and the impact on site performance and revenue is immediate. 

By entrusting their payment flows to a single PSP, merchants remain dependent on their provider. Regardless of the quality of service, this dependency always represents a risk.
Adopting an orchestrated multi-PSP approach is essential to regain control: payments are no longer a commodity, but a strategic territory.   

From a reactive to a proactive mindset: the merchant takes back control

Structuring the payments function to regain control

As we have seen, the market landscape has evolved rapidly in recent years. Consumers are increasingly demanding, and they have specific expectations regarding payments. This crucial stage of the purchasing funnel has reached a level of maturity that is pushing companies toward professionalization and excellence.  

This evolution has given rise to a profession that barely existed a few years ago: the Payments Manager. Once reserved for very large specialized retailers, this role is now an integral part of decision-making teams for retailers and merchants facing payment challenges, whether online, in-store, or in an omnichannel context. 

Proof that payments have shifted from a cost center to a profit center. 

The Payments Manager occupies a cross-functional role, sitting at the intersection of several teams:

• With the IT department, to ensure technical robustness and the integration of solutions.
  
  
• With the finance department, to track flows, optimize transaction-related costs, and maximize acceptance rates. 
  
  
• With the e-commerce team, to improve the customer experience during the checkout process and increase conversion rates. 

Their mission: to manage the payment architecture with a focus on continuous improvement, optimization, and profitability, capable of transforming a fixed cost into a growth lever. 

This professionalization of the function, and the benefit of having an in-house conductor, allow merchants to regain control of their payments and rely less on delegating the entire responsibility of the payment stack to a single PSP.

Structuring the function is only the first step. To realize this independence and reap all its benefits, merchants must go further: adopt a multi-PSP approach and implement true payment orchestration.

What are the benefits of a multi-PSP strategy?

With this approach to regaining control over payment flows, merchants can analyze the context more precisely and choose the most suitable provider for each payment journey.

This payment orchestration offers numerous benefits: 

• Financial optimization 
  
  • Strengthen bargaining power with payment providers
  • Choose the most cost-effective route for each transaction in real time
  • Reduce processing costs and improve margins 
• Customer satisfaction 
  
  • Respond more quickly to customer expectations (innovation, payment methods, currency management, etc.) 
  • Offer a payment journey perfectly tailored to the purchasing context
• Operational performance
  
  • Optimize the acceptance rate by selecting the best-performing PSP based on the country, local bank, or card type
  • Increase revenue by reducing payment failures
• Enhanced resilience 
  
  • Implement backup mechanisms and intelligent flow routing in the event of a PSP outage or temporary issue
  • Reduce risks associated with dependency on a single provider 

In summary: a multi-PSP approach, combined with payment orchestration, gives merchants the ability to actively manage their transactions, gain independence from providers, and turn their payment strategy into a competitive advantage.

Towards a new era of payments

Just like other e-commerce challenges such as customer acquisition or retention, payments are a truly strategic territory. 

As this "payment ownership" trend takes hold, solutions like Purse, which specialize in payment orchestration, are already enabling merchants to implement high-performance, sustainable multi-PSP strategies.

Are you ready to take control? Find out how in our article dedicated to multi-PSP strategy