Rise of SMB-focussed platforms
One of the biggest themes in the post-pandemic world is the adoption of digital tools by smaller businesses to expand their reach and automate operations. The rise of software platforms has accelerated the change: increasingly, these platforms are connecting end users and businesses in new ways, adding payments and financial services functionality, and creating new purchase experiences.
Today, many software platforms and SaaS players help merchants accept payments by providing online services for businesses of all sizes. Payments functionality has become integral for these platforms to differentiate their product and create stickiness, and merchants using the platform no longer need to establish direct integration with acquiring banks or payment gateways.
Below are some of the most common types of platforms:
- E-commerce: Platforms, such as Dukaan and Gupshup , which help businesses sell goods online using digital storefronts or conversation tools.
- Education: Platforms, such as Fedena and MyClassboard, which helps institutes collect fees from parents and students.
- Invoicing: Platforms, such as Zoho and Tally, which help businesses invoice their clients.
- Travel and Hospitality: Travel & Hotel ERPs, such as TBO and BookingJini, which help businesses with booking platforms and collect payments from their customers
- Restaurant: Restaurant ERPs, such as Petpooja and UrbanPiper which help businesses with ordering and dine-in solutions.
- Other: Miscellaneous platforms offering Billing, Checkout, Lending, CRM solutions to businesses
While each type of platform or SaaS provider is different, many have made payments a core part of the customer experience. Increasingly, they’re using payments capabilities to differentiate their offering and brand, strengthen their relationships with their customers, and monetize the transactions on their platforms.
What do Software Platforms need to provide payments offering
To enable a traditional payment facilitation solution in partnership with an payment processing vendor, the platform or SaaS player will need to solve all the following legs:
- Merchant management – Onboard businesses onto the platform and payment vendor. Collect comprehensive KYC as per regulations and pass on to the acquiring vendor. The platform will need to operationally handle the to and fro between merchant and acquiring vendor till KYC is approved.
- Integration with Payment vendor – Integrate with payment vendor to authenticate and authorize all payments workflows for onboarded businesses. This integration should be secure and scalable to cater to any multitude of merchants without any operational touchpoints.
- Payment experience for Customers – Provide a payment checkout experience for Customers on the platform – with focus on all payment modes covered and optimized for conversion across devices.
- Reconciliation & Reporting – Sub-merchants need visibility to transactions and settlements status and details. They can either use the payment vendor dashboard, but would prefer a stitched data experience within the Platform
- Compliance & security – Adhere to latest regulations and provide financial security to the users on the platform. Build features, operations and teams around KYC compliance, enhanced due diligence, payment fraud and compliance.
- Revenue management – Define, communicate & manage Pricing to businesses for facilitating transactions, and build charging mechanisms from business accounts.
- Controls for Platform – Build tools for internal teams to manage and monitor accounts and post-payment operations like refunds, disputes and chargebacks and settlement payouts.
The Platforms and SaaS providers should also ask the following questions:
- How fast can I build and provide payments offering to businesses on the Platform or solution suite?
- Should I invest in payments execution or rather explore opportunities to add value to businesses and customers?
- Is my payment solution suited towards my industry needs?
How does Cashfree Embedded Payments help Platforms
With rise in adoption, enabling and simplifying financial transactions will be a key ingredient for success of business-focussed Platforms. Introducing Cashfree’s Embedded Payments – a groundbreaking initiative for Platforms and SaaS that empowers businesses with the tools to unlock seamless payment experiences and drive growth. Let’s dive into how this product can revolutionize the way businesses handle transactions on your Platform.
- Effortless Merchant Onboarding – To onboard businesses with Embedded Payments, start by creating new merchant accounts using the Merchant Onboarding APIs directly within your Platform. Next, embed the Onboarding Link within your Platform to let merchants complete their KYC without navigating away from your interface. Listen to onboarding status events using Merchant Onboarding Webhooks.
- Developer-friendly Integration – Integrate our Embedded Payment Gateway with your Platform to seamlessly facilitate payments collection for your businesses from end users. Manage payments, refunds, settlements and other post-payment workflows using our developer-friendly APIs and Webhooks. Integrate once and scale for any number of merchants without operational overhead.
- Seamless Payment experience for Customers – Provide coverage of 120+ payment modes to customers on your Platform reducing drop-offers due to payment mode unavailability. Use and embed our compliant and conversion-optimized pre-built checkout page within your platform or build your own white-label solution to establish your brand identity using our SDKs and APIs. No need for redirects and external interfaces as provided by traditional payment gateways.
- Reconciliation & reporting – Embedded Payments provides your Platform with APIs and Reporting tools that deliver integrated data from sub-merchants in a unified manner. Leverage and stitch this data to provide enhanced payment visibility and reporting to your businesses within your Platform.
- Compliance & security – Security is non-negotiable in payments. This principle is followed thoroughly in Embedded Payments and is available to the Platform out of the box without worrying about it. Our onboarding solution is Master KYC-compliant and includes enhanced due diligence. Our payment solution adheres to PCI-DSS, Card data storage and other regulatory compliances. Our risk and fraud engine provides Chargeback & Dispute management, Transaction Monitoring, CTS / FTS checks, AML screening and more.
- Unlock payments revenue – Mark up the pricing for your businesses over the base fees for your platform account and earn on every transaction, without any explicit visibility to your businesses. Raise a monthly invoice and claim your earnings from Cashfree.
- Faster Go-To-Market – Achieve quicker market entry without the time-consuming development associated with traditional payment facilitation. Use our pre-built solutions or build your native experience using our tools built with API-first approach.
- Diverse Industry applications – Cashfree Embedded Payments isn’t limited to a single industry. Whether you’re in e-commerce, fintech, education, travel, or any other sector, this product can be tailored to suit your industry’s specific requirements.
- Controls for Platform – Embedded Payments will give you dashboard and APIs to manage and monitor your merchants at scale. Provide them seamless post-payments experiences to manage their refunds, disputes and chargebacks and settlements from your Platform.
Getting started with Cashfree Embedded Payments
Embedded Payments represent a paradigm shift in how Software Platforms and SaaS can offer payments experience to their businesses and end users. Say goodbye to multiple email or form-filling sessions for onboarding businesses, redirections to external payment gateways, and the anxiety of sharing sensitive card details. With Embedded Payments, the entire business and customer experience happens right within the platform.
Start by signing up for an Embedded Payments Partner account with Cashfree using this link. Know more about the process here.
