Payments are essential. If money makes the world go around, payments are the transport network that propels it around the globe. Then, there is the payment card. A pocket-sized powerhouse for riding the payment network, and participating in the global commercial system. 

However, while a payment can be made with a simple touch of a card, facilitating the payment process is anything but simple. In fact, it is extremely complex. From ensuring security, optimising transaction speed and cost efficiency to handling cross-border payments, integrating emerging technologies, and programming card chips, there’s a lot to consider. In addition, there’s maintaining compliance with an ever-evolving regulatory landscape, paired with the increasing demand from customers for instant access and payments.

The payment card may not always be a core element of our clients’ businesses, but whether it’s a loyalty card, a corporate expense card, or a personal debit card, it is undeniably essential to everyone’s overall offering. Cardholders demand instant and easy access to their funds in a safe and secure environment. They also want that access and experience to be frictionless and provided in ways that may even extend far beyond the card. 

A modern app and tokenised cards are the minimum of what customers expect and discerning, digitally-savvy people expect a lot more. They want their payments digitised, mobilised, and sometimes, even integrated into physical objects for maximum convenience. However, it is this expectation and desire for more that transforms payment cards from a necessity into an opportunity.

Our clients excel at understanding and engaging people in their target markets, and in turn cardholders expect great service and instant access to their funds, anytime, anywhere. Against this backdrop, service is a key driver of customer acquisition and retention. Service also acts as a revenue multiplier. As our clients increase the number of services they offer to cardholders, the more they become embedded into their lives. This has never been truer than in the world of payments, which are increasingly connected to more areas of people’s everyday lives.

The payments space is always innovating, adding new features, and connecting to ecosystems that increase their value to the cardholder. All of which has to be managed and delivered. That is why, when we engineered our solution, there was one critical question we had to answer –  how do you take something that is complicated to do, with many moving parts, and make it simple and straightforward for our partners to offer to cardholders?

The answer is the three core tenets of our philosophy that enable us to achieve our vision of ensuring that both our clients and their end customers can achieve their goals with ease.

1. A Light Touch

When keeping things simple is a priority, making sure our services are easy to use is critical, and something of an artform.

The underlying systems that power a payment card and the mobile applications that accompany them are significant. Our answer is to simplify the entire process, ensuring our clients can focus on their core activities unencumbered.

For some, that means connecting directly into our platform and delivering the card as part of an embedded finance experience. For others, there is no technical connection required at all. There is no build or design work. It is all delivered as a stand-alone service and fully-branded card app that is tailored to our clients’ specific requirements.

At Accomplish, we are financial service veterans, technical specialists, and savvy business experts. This means we operate in a fully regulated landscape, speak the language of IT and understand the needs of business owners. Our mentality and mindset is therefore aligned with our clients, and our culture has a wide span across disciplines.

A great example of the breadth of our thinking is in the availability of our fully white label biometric-ready apps, and our bespoke anti-fraud systems, which allow us to adapt the rules, typology, and behaviours to granular levels of detail on a project specific basis.

2. Putting Our Partners in Full Control

Control is a critical component for us and our clients, and so it is baked into everything we do. A key part of this is the service desk, which we can extend to our clients. 

When appropriate, we can enable our clients to undertake a range of actions, such as front line customer support, blocking and cancelling cards, all with maker-checker functionality as required by our clients. We also provide oversight and insights so our clients can see why a payment might have failed, and contact the customer immediately to resolve the issue. We run regular service reviews with our clients to analyse key data points in order to drive the continuous improvement of products to ultimately further drive end-customer satisfaction and usage of the product.

3. Holistic Issuing: Our End-to-End Service

When we control the entire ecosystem, it makes sure that our clients ultimately benefit from this full control, too. It is why we took a holistic approach to the design of our business, and why we offer a truly end-to-end solution. We are the card issuer, the processor, and the application developer, as well as providing many other aspects of the value chain.

As a specialist in fintech and financial services, we can leverage our significant experience and expertise to deliver an experience of the highest quality, while also responding to changes in the regulatory environment at speed.

When the regulation and the tech are harmonised, and designed with each other in mind, you have a much smoother service by default. When we give ourselves speed and agility, our customers get speed and agility.

Payment processing gives us full visibility and control of the payments service. We have our finger on the pulse of what is happening in real-time, which means we can overcome issues quickly.

Payment services are essential. They enhance convenience, expand market reach, and drive growth. Accomplish exists to make a positive contribution to this essential area of everyday life. By simplifying transactions, providing global access, and offering valuable data insights, our services enable our clients’ businesses to thrive.

It is because of our approach that some of the biggest consumer brands and banking groups in the world use our products and services. We are the only fintech company in the world to have developed a card product with the Royal Mint, and are proud to have developed award-winning solutions for some of the best-known brands in the world including, Santander, IBM, Vodafone, and Lenovo.