Partner Spotlight: IXOPAY

In spring 2021, shortly before Volt raised its Series A, we announced our partnership with IXOPAY – an enterprise-grade payment orchestration provider with one eye squarely on the industry’s direction of travel.

With PSD2 and open banking firmly on the agenda, IXOPAY began its search for a real-time payments provider that offered broad coverage, a slick checkout, and the ability to explore new use cases in line with merchant needs.

Thomas Beinhart, IXOPAY’s Provider Relationship Manager, spoke through the partnership so far – and what he predicts will come next.

Thomas, what’s the IXOPAY elevator pitch?

“We’re a payment orchestration platform whose mission is to give merchants control of their revenue. Founded in Austria and headquartered in the US, we offer a single API integration to more than 200 payment providers globally – including Volt.

“A big thing for us is helping merchants align their payment stack with their target markets. Volt plays into this by offering businesses a harmonised account-to-account solution that’s directly connected to local payment rails – and which is backed up by an optimised checkout experience.”

When did IXOPAY and Volt start working together?

“Back in May 2021, a month after I joined IXOPAY. This was when open banking was experiencing its first wave of being a buzzword. The first merchants were actively looking for open banking solutions, particularly on the payment initiation side.

“While the full emergent use cases weren’t immediately obvious back then, we were very excited by open banking technology. It quickly made sense to include Volt, with its capabilities as they were at time, in our portfolio of available payment providers.”

What was it about Volt that stood out as a provider?

“This was in the really early beginnings of open banking, when there were a lot of names circulating in the market. As a technical service provider dealing with merchants that operate on a global scale, we had one non-negotiable: exceptional coverage. If a provider tells us they have 100% bank coverage in Portugal but 50% in Spain, it doesn’t help us – especially when they often had no coverage in the rest of Europe at all.

“As an aggregator of solutions for the majority of European countries, with I would say 90% bank coverage in the main, Volt has a clear differentiator. Others seemed to focus only on the DACH region, southern Europe or eastern European countries.”

How has merchant adoption been over the past four years?

“The main driver of adoption, interestingly, has been the pricing structures around credit card processing. Either they’re complicated or they’re costly, and it’s often the crypto and travel industries that feel this the most.

“They’re naturally interested in lower-cost processing from a provider that has Europe-wide coverage. We’re now seeing this demand from lower-risk industries such as logistics and retail.

“The product-market fit with crypto is especially strong. The combination of payment initiation and account information services can be really powerful. You can start with basic due diligence when onboarding new customers; if an exchange has a new user whose main payment method is SEPA Direct Debit, they can use AIS to check if their account actually belongs to them. These are the kinds of use cases that will drive further adoption.”

Are there parallels between what Volt offers and the payment trends you’re noticing at IXOPAY?

“Real-time payments are always a hot topic. The faster merchants receive funds, and the faster they receive a notification that a transaction is successful, the better.

“With AIS, it’s purely an educational topic. Merchants need to be informed on what’s possible with open banking. It’s not purely about processing from the customer’s bank account to the merchant account; it’s about the services on top of that.

“Another element is a question we’re often asked: ‘How can payment orchestration help grow our business?’ The simple answer is that if you work with a payment orchestrator like IXOPAY you can enable what you need within minutes, without any technical effort.

“This means merchants can test, out of the box, if use cases really work out – without investing heavily into development work. They can focus on their core product, which is probably not payments.”

What are you most excited about from the partnership with Volt going forward?

“We’re live with Volt across Europe, but Australia is also a really interesting market for us. We’re really interested in Volt’s expansion plans; will you focus on your core market or expand into new regions?

“From a product perspective, we’re looking forward to exploring new AIS use cases. Maybe they’re not obvious at the moment, but will become must-haves in six to 12 months – particularly within onboarding processes.”

Interested in integrating open banking into your payments stack? Find out more about partnering with Volt.