Building an Acquiring System for Tomorrow - Today

The payments market is evolving rapidly. With emerging technologies, diverse payment methods, and shifting regulatory frameworks like PSD3 and DORA, acquirers face increasing pressure to modernise. The challenge now goes beyond processing payments – it’s about building systems that are scalable, compliant, and ready to adapt to future demands. 

In this blog, we explore the preference shift toward "Acquiring as a Service" (AaaS) and how acquirers can future- proof their systems in the rapidly changing payments landscape. 

The need to modernise - From Legacy to AaaS  

Acquirers play a vital role in the payment ecosystem. However, many still rely on traditional on-premises systems - platforms that require ongoing high operational costs for upgrades and maintenance, offer limited scalability, and have slow time to market. Legacy systems often lack the flexibility to quickly adapt to new payment methods, evolving fraud threats, or changing regulatory requirements.  In our previous blog, 'Why Acquirers Need to Move Beyond Legacy Systems', we discussed the key challenges of maintaining such a system. 

As transaction volumes grow and new payment types such as QR-code payments and A2A transfers become more popular, legacy systems are no longer sustainable. The solution is to shift to a cloud-native service model. 

Acquiring as a Service (AaaS) offers a flexible, modern model that enables acquirers to innovate without the burden of maintaining costly systems. 

Key advantages of AaaS 

Let's discuss the advantages of AaaS approach. In the wake of digital transformation, the model is a compelling alternative to traditional infrastructure. The benefits are undeniable: 

• Reduced maintenance cost and time for upgrades: Eliminates the ongoing expenses for maintenance and upgrades of legacy systems. By shifting to a cloud-based model, acquirers avoid additional costs for upgrades.

• Future compliance made easier: AaaS providers handle regulatory requirements like PSD3 and DORA, reducing the burden on acquirers to keep up with regulatory changes.

• Fast, flexible introduction of new products: Quickly launch new products and services with minimal friction. The cloud-native architecture allows for rapid development and deployment.

• Lower long-term cost of ownership: Remove the need for on-premises infrastructure.  AaaS offers a subscription-based model that includes all necessary updates and support.

• Easily flex capacity to meet rapid growth in demand: AaaS provides the scalability needed to accommodate growing transaction volumes and changing market demands through cloud-native architecture.

• Deliver cutting-edge data services to create added value: Offer data services that provide valuable insights to merchants, from transaction overviews to business analytics that help merchants make better decisions and improve their operations. 

Vision 2030: The next generation acquiring  

By 2030, successful acquiring systems will need a completely new set of capabilities to cope with the changes. These systems will require a cloud-ready platform with open-source architecture that can handle increasing transaction volumes efficiently while maintaining system reliability. Acquiring systems must be flexible enough to comply with new regulations and anti-fraud measures, integrating techniques to detect and stop various types of fraud, including (ATO), synthetic ID, and APP fraud.  

End-to-end payment orchestration will be crucial in managing different parts of the payment process such as processing and communication between banks. At the same time, data-driven insights will empower merchants to optimise inventory, develop new products, and improve customer experiences. 

At BPC, we have been working with acquirers across Europe and beyond to deliver modern, future-proof, cloud-native systems tailored to business needs. Our report "Next-generation acquiring: a new reality of the digital-ready future" shares real-world examples of how we've helped clients build acquiring systems that reduce costs, enhance compliance, and introduce innovative features.  

Tomorrow's acquiring systems will not only process payments but also drive revenue growth, offer greater flexibility, and enable the rapid introduction of new innovative features.  

If you would like to know more about next-gen card processing, download the full whitepaper.