6 Things to Consider When Choosing a Payment Partner in Southeast Asia

Running and scaling a business in Southeast Asia can be tricky for several reasons - Your market may have high business demand, or you may spend time securing perfect advertisement placements, but most importantly, your business requires revenue to continue thriving.

With a fragmented payments eco-system across Southeast Asia, businesses resort to multiple payment partners when scaling their business across the region. Read on to find the 6 essential criteria you should know when choosing the right payment partner to scale your business with.

1. Strength & Stability of System Infrastructure

Have you stayed up till the stroke of 12 during the Black Friday or 11.11 sales just to be disappointed by a frozen check-out page?

Never lose a customer again because of payment processing downtime. Payment Gateways that excel at certain aspects but fail in their primary purpose of processing your payments during peak-sales periods influence your sales conversion rates. The strength and stability of a payment processing platform depend on its infrastructure capacity to support your business during peak traffic.

2. Financial Strength & Reputation of Company

Signing up with a payment partner means entrusting them with your hard-earned revenue. Hence, as your business migrates online, it is essential to do due diligence before deciding on a payment gateway.

How strong is the payment gateway provider’s financial health? Are they credible or backed by a reputable company with many years of experience in the industry?

For instance, the markers to look out for include your payment partner's annual Total Payment Volume (TPV). The TPV marker indicates the total amount of payment transactions executed by the authorized payment institution (in this case, your potential payment partner) in the preceding fiscal year.

3. Clientele

A payment gateway provider's reliability and capability can also be verified by checking their clientele list - clients stay with payment partners they trust. As the saying goes - “A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”

A quick check of your payment partner’s website will show whether they serve blue-chip merchants or if the network they possess with merchant partners is extensive enough to satisfy your business needs.

4. Technical Support Capacity

Payment partners need to keep up with the evolving landscape of payments and technology. Innovation is at the forefront of implementing the latest technology, but more importantly, payment gateways are very technical-intensive and require highly trained specialists to support and maintain its infrastructure.

Effective technical support is crucial when you are experiencing issues with your payment gateway or need to handle high volume transactions concurrently. With a strong engineering team capacity, a payment gateway provider will help ensure little to no downtime with prompt assistance.

5. Payment Methods Supported

Consumers are spoilt for choice with e-wallets and cashless payment options available in the market. Your business will gain an advantage if it can cater to as many payment methods as possible, giving your customers the freedom and flexibility to pay with their preferred methods.

Choose a payment gateway that accepts most, if not all, the latest e-wallets, credit cards, and FPX/online banking. Plan by picking a payment provider that constantly upgrades to keep up with the latest technologies and trends.

Perhaps you can start with the question – How extensive are the payment channels provided?

6. Security & Reliability

It is essential to check if your chosen payment provider is verified with the local central bank. In Malaysia, a quick check with Bank Negara Malaysia will give you an indication of whether your prospective payment partner has the reliability you look for.

You should also choose payment gateway providers that have passed a third-party organization's evaluation and assessment as a secured, qualified, and reliable payment gateway for added security.

Scrolling through Bank Negara’s website, Razer Merchant Services (RMS) would be listed. With 16 years of experience as a pioneer in Malaysia’s payment industry, Razer Merchant Services (RMS) is compliant with the highest global data security standard of the Payment Card Industry: Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), Service Provider Level 1, as well as the Malaysian Financial Services Act 2013, with one of the lowest dispute transaction ratios in the industry.

RMS, is the B2B vertical of Razer Fintech, which managed a phenomenal FY2020. Razer Fintech recorded a Total Payment Volume (TPV) totaling to US$4.3 billion - an increase of 104.4% Year on Year, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of over 70% since FY2018.

This leading SEA Payment Gateway is trusted by blue-chip industry leaders, such as Google, Shopee, Taobao, Starbucks, and Lazada to process more than 100,000 transactions simultaneously with zero downtime.

Government bodies such as Lembaga Zakat Selangor (LZS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) and Perbadanan Tabung Pendidikan Tinggi Nasional (PTPTN) also choose RMS as a payment partner for such high-volume transactions as its system is backed by its  High Availability (HA) infrastructure .

RMS’ extensive payment network in Southeast Asia enables local e-wallets, credit and debit cards, FPX/online banking, direct debit, and Razer Cash. RMS’ infrastructure is supported by a large, dedicated technical team consisting of 60 experienced engineers, with technical expertise in managing large transaction volumes, even during peak sales season.

Get in touch with RMS to power your business with the payment gateway trusted by SEA’s biggest eCommerce companies.