Local payment methods, regional acquiring strategy, and FX considerations — plus deep-dive cost audits and renegotiations that deliver measurable savings.
Global payments and cost optimisation are distinct disciplines that often get conflated. Businesses going international want to know how to accept payments effectively in new markets. Businesses already operating at scale want to know why their payment costs are higher than they should be. Often the same business has both problems simultaneously.
We approach them separately — each has its own diagnostic, its own set of levers, and its own timeline. But they frequently interact: expanding internationally without understanding the cost implications of local payment methods and acquiring strategies is one of the most common ways payment costs spiral.
Most businesses have never had their payment costs independently benchmarked. The gap between what they're paying and what businesses of comparable size and profile pay is often 8–20%. That's not a rounding error — at meaningful volume, it's a significant P&L item.
In many markets, cards are not the dominant consumer payment method. iDEAL in the Netherlands, Bancontact in Belgium, BLIK in Poland, PIX in Brazil, UPI in India, Alipay and WeChat Pay in China — failing to offer these at checkout is leaving conversion on the table. We map the payment method landscape for your target markets, assess integration complexity and cost, and help you prioritise which APMs are worth implementing and in what sequence.
Cross-border acquiring — where the acquiring bank is in a different country to the cardholder — typically results in higher decline rates and higher interchange costs. For markets with significant card volume, local acquiring (or at minimum, a domestic acquiring relationship) can meaningfully improve authorisation rates and reduce costs. We assess the economics and practicality of local acquiring for your priority markets.
Multi-currency businesses face a range of FX decisions: whether to present prices in local currency (DCC), how to handle settlement currencies, and whether to use your PSP's FX conversion or manage it separately. PSP FX margins are typically 1–2% above mid-market — material at scale. We model the FX impact and help structure a more cost-effective approach.
For businesses entering new markets, we provide a full payment infrastructure plan: required payment methods, regulatory considerations (PSD2 SCA, local licensing, data localisation), acquiring options, and integration sequencing. The goal is to enter a new market with a payment setup that's right-sized from day one, rather than retrofitting later.
Interchange fees are set by card networks and passed through by acquirers — but the specific interchange category each transaction attracts depends on how the transaction is submitted. Data quality (level 2/3 data for corporate cards), MCC accuracy, authorisation-to-settlement matching, and transaction type flags all affect the interchange category captured. We audit your interchange mix and identify where optimisation in submission practices could reduce your effective interchange rate.
We benchmark your acquirer fee schedule — including processing fees, authorisation fees, scheme fee pass-through, FX margins, and any ancillary fees — against market rates for businesses of your size and profile. This gives you the data to know whether you're being treated fairly, and what to push back on.
Many PSP contracts have been in place for years without renegotiation, even as transaction volumes have grown significantly. Volume growth is the single most powerful lever for fee negotiation — but only if you use it. We prepare benchmark-backed negotiation briefs and support renegotiation conversations with your existing providers.
We build a full picture of your current payment costs — effective rate by channel, card type, and geography — and benchmark against comparable businesses.
We audit your interchange mix and transaction submission practices to identify downgrade patterns and optimisation opportunities.
For international expansion, we map required APMs by market, assess integration complexity, and prioritise by conversion impact.
We deliver a prioritised cost reduction roadmap and, where relevant, a benchmark-backed brief for use in acquirer renegotiations.
We support implementation of cost reduction measures and, where applicable, manage or support acquirer renegotiation conversations.
Start with a free 30-minute call. We'll give you an honest assessment of where you stand and what's worth tackling first.