Achieving high local authorization rates

inDrive’s rapid growth allowed them to quickly expand into several key markets. However, operating in many different regions all with unique conditions came with its own set of challenges, like integrating local payment service providers and ensuring that the checkout experience was localized for each market. inDrive’s payment infrastructure also has a large impact on the drivers that work with them, so increasing income security for gig economy workers was another important consideration in this process.

Vasiliy Everstov, Head of Fintech at inDrive: “Operating in many different markets as part of the gig economy comes with several important considerations. Top of the list is providing the right checkout experience for local users. We realized that a payment solutions platform like Payrails could help us address the hyperlocal needs of drivers and passengers by enabling us to localize our payments setup and by making it easier to operate in each market.”

By far the biggest hurdle was integrating a mix of payment service providers that could operate cost-efficiently on a global scale and to simultaneously address local processing needs. The other major obstacle was integrating alternative payment methods (APMs) that were relevant for each of the markets that inDrive operates in. This two-pronged challenge applied not just to inDrive’s existing operations, but would also become significant for any future markets they planned to enter.

Enabling local rails with fast time to market

By partnering with Payrails, inDrive was able to implement local processing solutions that increased payment authorization rates and reduced their time to market. Before coming up with a customized plan, Payrails took the time to 1) understand the user expectations across inDrive’s operating countries as well as to 2) familiarize themselves with local processing options and the available payment service providers. This knowledge allowed Payrails to tailor the downstream PSP integrations according to inDrive’s exact needs and to avoid any feature gaps that might cause friction down the line.

Payrails devised three payment strategies for inDrive that would address their global and local processing needs and drive payment performance.

Introduce a Payment Service Provider (PSP)-agnostic integration layer to facilitate local payment processing

Given the global coverage of inDrive, connecting with local payment service providers is an essential strategy for their business, as local processing is more cost-efficient and better adept at addressing local requirements, thereby increasing chances of payment completion. However, operating in fragmented markets makes this strategy quite challenging.

Enter Payrails’ PSP-agnostic payment processing layer: This integration layer reduces the complexity of a multi-PSP set-up by abstracting the PSPs, allowing for more flexible and cost-efficient processing. All it took was one single integration of the technical software layer into inDrive’s payment infrastructure and inDrive was able to benefit from multiple payment processors and payment methods at once.

This approach not only reduced engineering efforts and lowered costs, it also strengthened inDrive’s presence on the local level by going to market faster and meeting the demands of individual regions, leading to increased payment authorization rates overall. Payrails also enables inDrive to activate new integrations and maintain all of their current payment partner integrations from one central dashboard.

Activate smart routing to ease the process of switching between PSPs      

With a large number of rides being processed a day, it was critical for inDrive to process payments under the most favorable economic conditions and with as little downtime as possible. This is where Payrails’ dynamic payment routing came into play.

Dynamic payment routing sends payments to the best provider according to factors and parameters pre-defined by inDrive. These might be low processing fees, transaction location, transaction value, risk factors and more, and these conditions can be finetuned depending on the market. This strategy ensures that payments are authorized as seamlessly and cost-efficiently as possible.

Payment routing is also useful to ensure business continuity. Relying on a single PSP can be risky, but by effortlessly switching between PSPs whenever it makes the most sense, inDrive is now able to safeguard their operations so that no driver or passenger is ever left in the lurch in case one PSP goes down or the payment method is not available.

Increase alternative payment method coverage

Lastly, to meet local user expectations, Payrails helped inDrive to integrate local alternative payment methods via their unified API. Offering locally and regionally preferred payment methods is an indispensable strategy for achieving a superior customer experience.

Adding preferred APMs leads to greater customer satisfaction and therefore reduces churn and increases payment success rates. It also helps in lowering overall processing costs as certain processors offer better rates when choosing a locally preferred payment method.

Significant uplift in payment approval rates

By approaching their challenges from multiple angles, inDrive made great strides in improving their overall payment performance. This positive impact resulted in increasing card payment approval rates by 11%.

“Thanks to Payrails, we were able to quickly integrate local PSPs needed to win top priority markets, which in turn helped us with achieving our business targets,” says Vasiliy Everstov.

Increased card payment authorization rates by 11%

By setting up automatic payment routing according to factors like location and currency, inDrive was able to significantly enhance efficiency and performance, resulting in an 11% increase in payment authorization rates.

Reduced time-to-market by 70%

By introducing the PSP-agnostic integration layer, inDrive reduced its time-to-market by 70% with each payment service provider. Payrails abstracts the complexity of a multi-PSP setup, which makes it easily adaptable to specific payment scenarios. The Payrails integration layer also relieved inDrive of extensive engineering efforts and made it easier to activate new local integrations in the future.