Series Introduction
Here at PaymentsAPI, we have been writing Messages From The Edge to communicate the unique perspectives maintained by the single most important constituent in modern payments innovation…the Software Company.
As Sr. Vice President, Business Development & Marketing for IP Commerce, Peter Osberg said in his most recent post, An API or a Platform?: Messages from the Edge,
An “API strategy” is not sufficient to partner with the software development community. What is your Platform strategy?
As the provider of the first Open Payments Platform, IP Commerce not only maintains a unique relationship with the software community…we have a demonstrated, tangible approach to solving for the needs expressed by this community.
To that end, we will be sharing additional insights into the solutions leveraged by software companies in this new series entitled, Perspectives from the Platform.
Value Added Capabilities
In a post entitled The Value of Value-Added Services: Messages from the Edge, the case was made that services that supplement the payment transaction are, frequently, of equal (or greater) importance than the payment transaction itself.
But how can a Platform solve for this issue?
The standard payment transaction is inherently synchronous. A transaction is initiated, a response is sent, and goods are delivered. This transactional interaction is supported by a system of legacy interfaces that have become decrepit since their initial creation. Innovative service delivery and innovative points of acceptance are, actually, hampered by these legacy systems that are no longer sufficient for supporting modern software development methodologies. Perhaps as important, they hamper the ability for differentiation of an offering vs. the myriad of other “me too” APIs battling for mindshare within the development community.
In contrast, the IP Commerce Platform enables this “synchronous” transaction to be securely interrupted and value-added capabilities injected into the transaction itself. This capability of introducing “Value-Added Services” into the transaction flow (often without substantive development effort or recertification) immediately solves for the needs of the software community - needs that are driven by their customer’s demands…not by some notional product decision made in a silo behind corporate doors.
But Value-Added capabilities comprise more than just services that occur, or are instantiated, during the transaction. These capabilities also include Data Services which are leveraged to holistically provide full transaction lifecycle data and information required by the customer (or consumer). Coupling payment services, value-added services, and data services through the same API ensures that the software companies remain “sticky” to their integration and eliminates any need for them to search out additional services from other providers in the market.
Your commodity sale of processing services is wholly insufficient in the era of the Platform. Supplement the services offered to the development community with a rich combination of Value-Added services and Data Services.
About the Author:
Tyler Hannan is the Platform Evangelist for IP Commerce. In addition to speaking about Platform & API trends with the software community, he maintains a blog entitled Emergent Commerce & Technology and coordinates frequent API Meetups.
