In the summer, our company received a request to develop an online acquiring platform in the CIS countries. As part of this project, we designed the architecture of the payment platform, developed an online gateway, an onboarding portal and a merchant account, customized the Back Office and implemented a mechanism for accurate commission calculation. Thanks to this, the customer received a ready-made infrastructure for accepting online payments and transparent management of the transaction economy.

In this article, we will share our experience in complex development: we will tell you how Internet acquiring begins, which team is needed to implement the project, and what you will get as a result.

How the work started: Back Office and project expansion 

The client’s first request concerned only one part of the future infrastructure — the connection of a Back Office solution for automating acquiring operations.

For understanding: the back office is not the front-line operations that the user sees, but the technological core that performs internal calculations, accounts for commissions, conducts transactions, forms documents and ensures the correct financial contour. It is the back office service that is responsible for ensuring that all payment transactions are properly conducted, calculated and reported.

However, after a series of discussions, evaluating our expertise and development experience, we determined with the customer the amount of customization of the back office to meet the individual requirements of the client, and later expanded the project to develop the entire complex. Thus, our new project included the development of:

• a single data model for all participants in the payment process;
• expanded back-office functionality: flexible tariff models, mechanisms for calculating fees to banks and merchants, routing management;
• a full-fledged digital platform: payment gateway, onboarding, merchant portal;
• integration with the acquiring bank, processing centers, and payment providers;
• a technology stack that ensures scalability and reliability of financial transactions.

Thus, the initial request for Back Office grew into a project to create the entire chain of the Internet acquiring platform, including architecture, core development, payment automation and modernization of internal financial technologies.

How the project team is formed: expertise in financial IT solutions and payment technologies

When it became clear that the client needed not just a Back Office customization, but a comprehensive digital payment solution, we assembled our team specializing in IT solutions for banks, businesses, and digital financial services. Such projects require deep expertise in payment system architecture, commission calculations, and transaction processing. This is not just about developing interfaces, but creating a reliable financial infrastructure.

Without expertise, any system risks becoming a “monolith” that is difficult to scale, develop, and adapt to the business processes of banks or PSP platforms. Therefore, the work on this included:

• The product manager. He helped formulate requirements by translating business objectives into technical solutions. It was he who ensured that the future platform met the requirements of acquiring for online stores (future partners and customers of the customer) and scalable systems for digital transactions.
  The architect responsible for the integrity of the system. He decomposed the product into key modules: an online gateway, a back office, a merchant portal, and
  an onboarding
• System analyst. He described in detail the business logic, API, and data model: from BIN routing to commission calculation algorithms. This approach has provided a solid foundation, including subsequent integrations of mechanisms for improving financial IT services.

After creating the architectural foundation, developers and testers joined the work. DevOps engineers have deployed test environments and set up continuous release delivery. The project management controlled the deadlines and budget, preventing the development from becoming an endless process, which is especially important when creating complex payment systems for PSP platforms, banks and financial organizations.

Development of the system on which acquiring is based

The central part of the architecture is the commission settlement mechanism, a key element of modern digital payment solutions. It is he who determines the economics of acquiring and sets the marginality of the entire platform. As part of the development, we have laid down two independent but interrelated commission settlement models, which are the basis for the effective operation of any technology related to the acceptance and processing of transactions.

Commissions in the merchant — PSP-platform contour

When a business connects to the platform — for example, a large delivery service or an online store – it needs transparent payment acceptance conditions. At this level, a basic offer is formed, for example, a fixed commission of 3% of the transaction.

Commissions in the “PSP-platform — suppliers” contour

The second level is the internal infrastructure. At this stage, the platform interacts with the acquiring bank, the processing center and aggregators that provide transactions and cash settlement processes. Each participant in the chain has its own tariff: it depends on the card’s BIN code, transaction route, and terms of cooperation.

This hidden economic part is especially important, including for building systems for digital transactions in banks and effective payment automation, where the accuracy of calculations directly affects the profitability of the payment service.

As a result, we have created a flexible mechanism that automatically and transparently calculates fees for both circuits. The system takes into account merchant tariffs, supplier tariffs, chains of transaction participants, routing by card BIN codes, and commission allocation rules. This formed the basis for accurate financial analytics and transparent payment flow management, an important aspect for modern financial IT services.

As a result, each transaction receives a detailed financial report: how much is earned, how much is paid to suppliers, and what is the total revenue of the platform. For the first time, the client has the opportunity to manage the economy of the service based on accurate data.

Only after creating the core did we switch to connecting Back Office: automation of calculations, workflow, generation of acts, formation of payments and closing of obligations.

Conclusion

After agreeing on the architecture, implementing key modules, and connecting all the necessary components, the final solution was deployed in the client’s test circuit. This stage has become critically important for quality control of the developed IT solution, which ensures stable online acquiring and correct operation of all systems.

In the test environment, the following tasks were performed:

• Functional tests of modules responsible for transaction routing, tariff management, and commission calculation.
• Integration tests with external suppliers — the acquiring bank and the processing center, which confirmed the correctness of the digital payment solution and the stability of communication channels.
• Verification of commission calculation algorithms for merchants and suppliers is a critical element for all modern payment systems.
• Piloting on real transactions in a limited amount, which made it possible to test the operation of the system in conditions as close as possible to industrial ones.

The pilot launch demonstrated the stability of the platform, the quality of integrations, and the effectiveness of the established commission mechanism. Through test operation, the customer gained a transparent understanding of the system’s operation and its readiness to provide secure and sustainable online acquiring for their business, including further payment automation and expansion of digital functionality.

Based on the pilot’s results, additional usage scenarios and optimization points were identified. We have prepared a roadmap for development, which is the basis for the next iteration of the project aimed at strengthening the digital payments infrastructure.