Guest Post: Can ISOs Play in a Growing ISV Market?

By John Newton, Vice President of Sales, Strategic Partnership Channel, First American Payment Systems.

In a word, yes.

To do so profitably, however, takes advance planning and a well-developed strategy. ISVs are fielding queries from potential payment integration partners left and right; they have little patience for promises of what you can do for them without proof of what you have done for others.

The smartest approach is to put your due diligence first. Don’t get ahead of yourself trying to sign ISVs before putting a plan in place. That’s short-term thinking, predictably linked to high churn rates. Instead, focus on the integration elements that others underestimate, building a strategy that delivers immediate and solid returns for all involved.

Before making a serious play for this market, you should first consider what your ISO will need to do, and evaluate potential payment partners accordingly.

Plan for the possibility of complex software integrations

What happens at the point of integration has the power either to solidify or derail your ISO’s hard-earned relationship with an ISV. In best-case scenarios, these processes are completed in a single business week, with a swift move from test to production environment, and happy customers all around.

Typically, however, owing to nothing more than the meticulous nature of this work, integration prep, testing and launch periods can last weeks, if not months. It is well worth the reputation of your ISO and the time you spend cultivating ISV relationships to fully vet a potential integration partner upfront. They should thoroughly understand not only the more complicated aspects of payments integration project management, but also how the process can impact ISO-to-ISV rapport.

Identify what “security” means to you, and hold your partners to that same standard

Taking the time to ensure that a potential partner’s security philosophy and protocols align with yours is mission critical. It forms the basis of trust between business owner and consumer, and – once lost (see the slew of near-daily headlines about data breaches and their long-lasting fallout) – that trust can be difficult to recover.

Security can also mean different things to different providers. Instead of taking what is said at face value, ask the hard questions. If they offer data breach protection, for example, probe on that. What does it entail? How are services monitored to ensure they remain effective and in compliance with emerging security standards?

There are many different ways of applying tokenization and encryption. If they tout this, explore what these security technologies look like from an ISV perspective. Ask for specifics about what these measures help protect, and how they enhance the security of a given transaction.

In addition, it’s worth exploring whether these services are provided directly from the potential provider’s own business, or outsourced. Your ISO can realize considerable economies of scale when choosing a full-service payments partner with these capabilities in-house.

Evaluate what the support experience is like (i.e., what your ISV can expect)

The old adage “everyone has great support until something goes wrong” holds up pretty well. What is your potential partner’s game plan not if – but when – things go wrong? They most certainly will, and you should have a transparent view into how a potential partner will provide support and resolution when the inevitable happens.

A few key questions to consider, particularly as they relate to integration, include:

• What is your developer support model?
  • What types of support do they provide and how is it delivered?
  • How large is the team staffing developer support?
  • What experience do they have as it relates to your ISO’s software focus?
• What should you expect from the API toolkit?
  • Does the API support your current coding language?
  • What types of documentation are readily available?
  • How well is error handling supported?
• What, if any, testing environment do you provide?
  • Are there any limitations to what can be tested?
  • What types of developer tools are available?
  • Who can help troubleshoot any issues the test environment reveals?

These components – integration, security, and support – are the proving ground from which an ISV will measure your ISO. By making them part of your due diligence upfront, you are demonstrating intangible value from the outset.

In this growing ISV market, that’s one of the smartest plays you can make.

Headed to Vegas for TRANSACT? So are we! Stop by Booth #2704 so we can talk ISOs, ISVs, and the First American difference. Or email us at [email protected]. And click here to read more about First American Payment Systems ISO partnerships.

TRANSACT is the world’s largest payments technology event, happening April 30-May 2 at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Over 4,000 payments technology industry professionals will attend the show, coming from every corner of the payments ecosystem for unrivaled networking and leading-edge networking. Click here to register.