The 5 Things Financial Institutions Need to Consider When Selecting a Payment System

If you are looking for a new payment solution, for the financial institution you are working with, but you don't know what to consider, you are in the right place. From setup cost to time to market, various things need to be carefully evaluated at the planning stage, to avoid regretting later. Here we have put together the five most important areas that you should be considering when choosing a new payment processing partner.
Time to market
It can take quite a long time from when a financial institution decides that it is time to upgrade its payment system, to when the new system is actually implemented and working. Building something like that in-house can be a considerable effort. Integrating a heavy software with your legacy system can be even much worse. A payment software, based on an API infrastructure, that is easier to integrate with another system, is generally the option that guarantees the fastest possible market time.
Scalability and flexibility
Financial services are changing fast, payments are evolving at a pace never seen before, and customer wants and needs are constantly changing over time. On top of that, there are always new regulations (e.g. PSD2 in Europe, FPDS in Singapore, or Bahrain open banking initiative) and the payment formats (SWIFT MT, ISO20022, SEPA) are constantly evolving, changing the rules of the game. All this means that financial institutions need a payment system that is componentized, flexible, scalable, and quick to update. Nobody wants to be obliged to suddenly change a whole system because its business is growing or changing fast.
Security
When it comes to payment systems, security is necessary and crucial. Secure internal architecture, action logging according to the global information security standards, role-based access control, strict password rules, 4-eyes authorization, - are all basic things needed in the payment system to guarantee that everything is working well, to protect customer data, and to ensure that customers' money is always safe.
Set up and maintenance costs
Set up and maintenance costs are both key to be considered when evaluating a new payment system. High initial costs are not a good sign, especially if the plan is to start small and test things. High maintenance costs could mean that the new system becomes unsustainable over time. Discussing a well-detailed budget at the beginning is decisive to avoid unpleasant surprises later.
Partner expertise
It may sound obvious, but when picking a partner, it is critical to check the expertise in the payment field and with similar system implementations. With many newcomers that just come and go, finding a partner with the right expertise could make a difference to manage and properly deliver a project of such importance.
At PaymentComponents, we built something that ticks all the boxes. In fact, with aplonHUB, financial institutions get a lightweight and reliable payment software, easy to be installed on the company premises or in the cloud. It makes it possible to handle all kinds of account-to-account payments, it is compatible with all major payment formats and it already supports MT to ISO20022 migration using CBPR+ translation rules. AplonHUB is a modular solution based on APIs, allowing you to scale up gradually, at your own pace.
Does it sound interesting? Book a demo now, to get a feeling of a new-age payment system!
See how aplonHUB covers these needs

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