Overview

Payment Processing Optimization

It's simple. One goal. Making you more money. GrayWire deliver through two divisions: Payment Processing Analytics and Custom Payment Processing Systems. We serve PSPs, payment processors, gateways and large sophisticated merchants.

94%

of clients like you hate industry acronyms.

26

years in the optimization services business.

Analyze first, then make it real.

Payment Processing Analytics cover the spectrum; we provide traditional direct analysis of your payment flow, as well as implementation and configuration of established analytics platforms or custom analytics solutions, tailored for high volume payment processing.

Our bolt-on Custom Payment Processing components attach to your existing payment systems, providing real-time payment decisioning to optimize the transaction outcomes that matter to you.

Analytics Solutions and Insights

Visibility into what's happening in your payments flow — not only what offline reports show you later. Need a system? We'll build it. Have a system? We'll leverage it. Need to know what it all means, we'll analyze it for you.

Real-Time Intelligent Routing

Bolt-on optimization systems customized to work with your existing payment systems, to optimize your payment processing. Suitable for payment processors and large sophisticated merchants. Custom tailored to the way you do business. Dynamically route each transaction through the bank, region, or merchant account that delivers the optimal outcome at the moment of transaction.

Real-Time Risk Management

Custom solutions that bolt-on to your existing payments systems, providing dynamic transaction-level real-time decisioning for managing in-month risk. 3D Secure, ThreatMetrix, fingerprinting, and risk scores at the frontend — weighed against daily and in-month backoffice risk: VAMP, chargebacks, disputes and more.

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It's natural to assume that 'optimization' is just a long word for making more money on each transaction. It's much more nuanced. I'd say it's about understanding what the optimal outcome is for a given transaction, in the moment, for a specific customer. That's why, if you're serious about optimization, you're talking about real-time decisioning systems, pretty much exclusively.

GrayWire Business Optimization

The GrayWire Process

Deep payments experience means a head start.

We know what works, and what doesn't. We start by mapping out what makes you unique.

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Map your payment surface

This is our starting point; a comprehensive view of inputs, outputs and control levers. Your incoming transaction flow: consumer, product, and risk info; your outbound routing map: the processors, gateways, merchants and geographies you process through; business parameters: the levers you use to control and measure outcomes.

Assess your payment systems

Our solutions work in coordination with the payment systems you have. Therefore, we comprehensively investigate the functionality your systems provide, how they're currently configured, as well as your processing rules.

Learn your management approach

Your teams have established 'optimization' processes and tools in place. We learn what they are, how they work, and collect historical data on the results they deliver. This is essential for identifying 'low hanging fruit' optimizations, later in the process.

Apply the GrayWire Toolkit

We conduct an exhaustive analysis using our toolkit, built on years of experience. Our process systematically assesses the viability of each, one by one. This is analytical modeling: your transaction flow, baseline performance, vs. potential performance, based on our experience. Each tool is quantified in isolation first, then repeated in combinations. This produces a ranked list of potential optimizations, each with a model-based measurement of 'optimization value.'

Assess business application

Starting with our list of potential optimizations, we engage with your management to identify which optimizations make sense. This is a thorough deliberative process. Typically, dozens of optimizations are pruned down to a small handful, usually 10 or less. The nuances of your business are pivotal. It's the most difficult part, by far, and experience matters. Getting this pruning right is the lynchpin to success.

Design & Develop Solution

With a list of optimizations in hand, we proceed to design the software that needs to be built. Our standard approach is to deliver optimizations through a delivery pipeline; you are able to deploy and realize the benefit of each as it comes off the line. Our engineering approach is agnostic to tech stack. Our architectural approach favors smaller components, each limited to a particular optimization. When appropriate, we build applications that coordinate multiple components. We avoid building yet another large complex system — you already have those! They're hard to maintain, especially in payments, where ongoing change is the norm.

Deploy and employ, carefully.

As each optimization is delivered, we collaborate with your staff to roll out, validate and begin using them. These are very powerful, effective tools: control levers you've never had. Many optimizations deliver their expected benefit instantly. There is a tendency to go full throttle, and they can be dangerous in the wrong hands. It's your business, your payment flow, and your team controlling the levers. You'll need smart responsible people who have a thorough understanding of your payment flow and your business. It takes time to acclimate and incorporate them in their ongoing operations. We're there to support you.

In brief

Deep payments intelligence, smart routing, exceptional results.
Built onto your existing systems.

Our Client stats tell the story:

4% average client baseline improvement
85% clients with analytics platform
35% clients getting actionable analytics
What We Deliver
As a turnkey provider, our in-house staff get it done—analysts, engineers and specialists who do ongoing analysis, stand up and tune systems, consolidate, and build custom real-time payment component systems. Most fall into these categories.
  • Smart Payments Routing

    Your business moves payment flow across multiple countries, processors, gateways, banks and merchants. Our solutions deliver custom, next-level, realtime routing optimization. Tailored to payment processors, PSPs, gateways and large sophisticated merchants.

  • Dynamic Risk Routing

    Solutions that dynamically optimize your realtime transaction flow, based on your in-month fraud/risk levels. The most common application is dynamically adjusting risk appetite, in proportion to daily fraud/VAMP counts; risk-on early in the month, risk-off at the end, or as necessary. Our fine-grained approach individually considers the inherent risk in each live transaction, and focuses de-risking on high risk transactions. Our goal is to deliver a solution that gently augments your transaction flow, as risk levels ebb and flow, with minimal impact on low risk transactions.

  • Analytics Systems Implementation

    We offer turnkey setup, design and implementation of major Analytics Platforms. You choose which, or we can make recommendations. A few providers dominate the market, and these days they're all pretty similar. The hard part is building it out to meet your needs. In payments, the problem is too much data, of which only a small portion has analytic value; success comes from knowing what part that is. Here again, experience counts, and that's why you'll need GrayWire to get it done right, the first time.

  • Payment Processing Analytics

    You've got an Analytics System in place. But you aren't getting anything from it. Yes, it turns out that Analytics Systems don't analyze. We provide full service Payment Processing Analytics. With deep domain experience, and a toolkit to boot, we'll use your system, and provide you with relevant insights and, more importantly, direct, actionable recommendations on what to do. GrayWire: because insights without action are useless.

Deep payments intelligence, smart routing, exceptional results. Built onto your payment systems.

GrayWire

Enter The GrayZone

Go GrayWire

You'll know you run smarter

Your Business Will Grow

Wherever you operate in the payments chain, your business will grow, at the expense of your competition. Smart processing delivers real measurable value; your customers will shift share to you, because you deliver a better result. Or you can keep it for yourself, drop it to the bottom line. Either way, it's great knowing you're leading the pack, transaction by transaction.

A Feeling of Control

The calming effect of finally having effective tools does wonders for your team, and you. Say goodbye to those end-of-month, late night risk management crises. Knowing you have powerful levers that keep you ahead lets you sleep easy at night. And finally having analysis that brings understanding, reason and order to your payments landscape. Sit back, relax, have a drink, and rule your kingdom.

That Lovely Feeling of a Fatter Margin

Every business is different, but one thing's for sure. You'll see the impact in your financials — the ones you've been watching daily for years. Yeah, it feels good. It feels even better when you realize they're sticking around. Now that's real business edge; that's GrayWire.

In payments, the moment matters. If the decision happens after the transaction is gone, the margin is already history.

GrayWire Payment Optimization

GrayWire Payment Solutions squeeze every last bit from your payments flow, straight to your bottom line.

With decades of experience, we've established some fundamental truths. These become core beliefs. They form the foundation of how we approach our work.

real-time decisioning — live transaction

Your Payment System is not a Payment Solution.

Off-the-shelf Payment systems are inherently dumb. Analytics Systems don't analyze. Analysts find insights but don't know what to do. Better Analysts figure out what to do. But then your Payment System can't do it.

That's not a Payment Solution. You need more.

A payment system is off-the-shelf software. It processes payments. It has features. Fancy ones have more features. You set it up and use it. But payment systems are fundamentally dumb.

An Analytics System is similar. You spend big to set it up, load up your data, create some reports. You end up with pretty dashboards that tell you what you already knew. Analytics Systems are fundamentally dumb. They don't analyze.

You hire an Analyst to analyze and find insights. They're interesting, but don't tell you what to do. Insights without action are useless.

You get a new analyst, one that produces directly actionable recommendations. And still, nothing happens. Turns out your payment system can't do what you want.

You invest time and more money for a new payment system, or custom code changes to your existing system. They're finally done. In the meantime, things changed.

You go live. It doesn't deliver. The world changed; optimal payment flow is a moving target.

Back to the drawing board.

You have a payments system, an analytics system, and an analyst who actually tells you what to do.

What you don't have is a Payment Solution — a GrayWire Payment Solution.

smart routing — parameter tuning

Payment Systems are rigid, Payment Optimization is dynamic.

Your off-the-shelf Payment System is set up with fixed rules. It predictably processes payments. And that's by design good. A Payment Optimization system is fully dynamic. It steps ahead of each individual transaction, and determines the most optimal path for the Payment System to take.

fraud / risk decisioning

Each Business defines 'Optimal' differently, and it changes day-to-day.

Optimal is multivariate: approval rates, transaction fees, exchange rates, VAT considerations, fraud ratios, remediation cost, chargeback ratios, and the list goes on. At any given moment, 'optimal' for a given transaction is a combination of the transaction itself — the consumer's details, and where the likely outcome intersects with the business' target parameters.

control group — measured lift

Optimization takes realtime systems, with smart people at the wheel.

The details of an individual transaction — the cardholder, location, risk indicators, and purchase details, materially affect the outcome of the transaction. To achieve the Optimal result, decisioning must be realtime. And smart, responsible people, must manage the guardrails and levers that define 'optimal' day-to-day.

Enter The GrayZone

Get more from your payments. A lot more.

Why wait? Call us today!

  • Quick ramp-up, deep payments experience
  • A proven toolkit, backed by analytics
  • Payments industry discretion and confidentiality

Let's talk. We'd like to learn about what you do, what you need, and share what we have to offer. We're standing by, ready to serve.