5 hidden problems with your payments platform

Are you doing everything you can to streamline payments and improve margins? You can start by examining these five payment system problems you might not even know you have.

Why are payment processing problems bad for business?

There are many fallout issues that come with an unoptimized payment processor. Issues with your payment platform cause more than just annoyance – they can slow your growth and dent your bottom line.

Payment processing problems for enterprise-level businesses can lead to:

• Fewer conversions
• Decreased retention
• Slower growth
• Revenue issues

5 main payment processing challenges

Payment processing challenges can be magnified for enterprise-level businesses that process payments across multiple channels and geographic locations. They can be particularly problematic for organizations that deal in high-volume transactions regularly.

Doing everything you can to streamline payments will help improve your margins and prevent low conversion rates. But where to start? Let’s take a look at the five most common payment processing problems you might not even know you have:

1. Losing out on new customers by not offering multiple payment options
2. Your payment processing system is not agile
3. You do not have a streamlined payment processor
4. You could be at risk of payment processor fraud
5. You lack access to global payment processing

Problem #1: Losing out on new customers by not offering multiple payment options

The way consumers buy is changing. If you’re not offering an array of fast, easy and consistent checkout options, they might go elsewhere. You need lightning-speed load times and a seamless user experience from consideration to purchase. Most of all, you need to offer multiple payment options so that customers find methods they want and trust. More than one in four shoppers has abandoned a shopping cart because their preferred payment method wasn’t available.

Of course, offering multiple checkout options won’t mean a thing if they come with high decline rates. When was the last time you checked authorization rates? You could be losing customer trust – and leaving money on the table – with payment auth rates that don’t beat industry standards. Improving them is critical to gaining net new customers and retaining existing customers.

Solution #1: Get a payments platform that offers consumers more choices of checkout methods

Give customers what they want: quick and easy checkout solutions using their preferred payment method. 59% of U.S. consumers trust unfamiliar businesses more when they offer PayPal.¹ And we’re the only payments platform that can offer multiple payment options like PayPal, credit and debit cards and popular digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay, all seamlessly integrated into one payments platform.

But there are other ways PayPal can improve customer experience. It can boost your reliability and processing speed, and it can also increase authorization rates. We offer local, cloud-based processing, industry-leading uptime and real-time payment updates to help increase transaction speed and improve auth rates. Based on a study in 2019, our auth rates are over 90%, beating industry standards by 300+ base points (BPS).² More authorized transactions don’t just mean more possible conversions. They could also bring increased customer trust and boost repeat business: 48% of consumers are more likely to return to a business when they have a good payment experience.³

Problem #2: Your payment processing system is not agile

Problems with your payment platform integration can really slow you down. For example, does your payments platform require multiple integrations in order to work with your tech stack? Is it keeping up with your fast-growing company in the ways it needs to?

Maintaining many different payment platform integrations will create slowdown at the worst possible times – when you need to pivot to keep up with changing customer preferences and risk tolerances.

Agility is essential to another area, too: maintaining security and customer trust in times of economic uncertainty. Does your payment system provide the agility large enterprises typically need, and help support you through changing circumstances?

Solution #2: An agile and future-proof payments platform

Manage your commerce network with a payments platform that lets you activate and deactivate functionalities, systems and partnerships as needed. PayPal is a fully customizable payments platform that can adapt to your changing needs and grow with your company through every stage of the business lifecycle. When you’re able to not only anticipate customer needs, but also easily provide solutions, then you can position your business to weather political, economic, or cultural shifts that impact consumer buying behaviors.

Problem #3: You have not got a streamlined payment processor

Too many integrations won’t just slow you down and prevent a quick response to a changing marketplace. If your payment integrations aren’t streamlined it can also decrease your operational efficiency and increase your costs.

If you’re looking to streamline operations, where do you start? One common area with too many integrations is the shopping cart. It might have one checkout button, a separate vendor for credit card processing, another for credit or installment offerings and yet another for fraud monitoring. When there’s an issue, it can take hours to figure out the root cause. Using a single shopping cart integration helps you resolve issues faster and at a cost that may be lower than coordinating multiple vendors.

You could also be losing money if you’re not utilizing the latest technology. Does your payments platform help you gain data-based insights and find all possible efficiencies? Does it use network tokenization, webhooks and data reporting, and analytics? Earn your share of that revenue by leveraging payments data.

Solution #3: A payments expert with the insights to help drive down costs

The best payment platforms don’t just process transactions and call it a day. They have powerful tools that help businesses take control of their data and identify areas for improvement. PayPal offers detailed reporting that reveals key trends in transactions, declines, settlement batches, and more. We use the power of webhooks to receive real-time information on events taking place in your gateway and respond to them quickly and effectively. And we use network tokenization, which can help improve authorization rates and reduce declines due to invalid credentials and fraud.

Problem #4: You could be at risk of payment processor fraud

Businesses and consumers made three million reports of identity theft and consumer fraud in 2018, the latest year available from the FTC. The financial loss due to credit card fraud alone was $14.7 billion. Threats to profits due to payment processor fraud, lost sales, compliance issues, and financial damages are very real – and deserve serious consideration.

Enterprise-level businesses deal with huge amounts of customer data and process high-value transactions daily. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that PCI compliance is all a business may need. It’s more important than ever to have the latest security and the highest levels of enterprise fraud protection in place.

Solution #4: Get a payment processor with fraud management tools

You need a payments partner that’s familiar with security for large businesses. Not every platform is able to deploy the latest solutions for fraud protection, data storage, and third-party integrations – but PayPal can. We test and deploy rules in real-time to adapt to evolving patterns with advanced machine-learning-based fraud protection. We can help prevent costly card fraud with 3D Secure authentication, and keep transactions secure with network tokenization. Is your current payments platform doing all that?

Problem #5: Scaling into global markets seems complicated and time-consuming

Every business has the same goal: growth. As the commerce landscape changes, new security requirements and data regulations – many of which are unique to specific countries or regions – can make scaling into new markets seem risky and overwhelming. Yet navigating these global payment processing challenges is critical for successful business expansion.

Enterprise businesses that operate in the worldwide marketplace often have complex and varied systems to cater to different cultural and regulatory landscapes. But managing disparate systems across several time zones is far from ideal. You need a global partner that can integrate payment types and currencies from every corner of the world into a single solution.

Solution #5: Scale into global markets with expert support to navigate changing regulatory environments

Business growth shouldn’t stop within a certain country’s borders. PayPal’s massive network of 281+ million consumers and 24+ million merchants can provide business with global solutions – and our unique relationships with local banks offer expertise in specific markets. Our combination of global scale and local knowledge means businesses can harness growth opportunities like cross-border transactions and local payment methods to expand into new global markets with confidence.

Payments platforms can – and should – do more than the bare minimum. The top platforms feel more like business partners, helping you optimize your payment strategy. Take a close look at your current platform and ask: Does it provide a simplified, all-in-one solution that integrates easily with your tech stack? Does it maximize payments performance and increase efficiencies? And can it provide the security and global solutions that today’s enterprise-level businesses need?

Don’t miss out on revenue that’s hiding in plain sight.