Alpha Payments Cloud to “revolutionise” payments
APC aims to run a centralised payments app store for banks, merchants and payment service vendors
A new payments service aims to change the way banks, merchants and payments providers interact with each other by using cloud technology.
Alpha Payments Cloud is an app store at its heart. The app store contains a choice of payments tools such as fraud prevention, mobile wallet and currency conversion. APC is building some of these apps, but the large majority of them are externally developed by the users. The idea is to provide a single marketplace where banks, merchants and payments providers will access each other, reducing the cost for all concerned.
The value proposition to payment product providers is that they can reach global distribution quickly; as APC gives banks and merchants access to the API of each solution, the vendor doesn’t have to wait for the acquirer to integrate before seeing the revenue.
A bank using the app store would have access to various payment tools that can be white-labelled and then offered to the bank’s clients – so the bank would essentially gain more products, which it can use to win business and keep clients happy.
The advantage to a merchant using the new system would be that they can choose whichever tools they want – for example, two fraud prevention tools and one business intelligence reporting tool – and then switch or try out other tools from the app store without having to renegotiate the contract. In essence they are getting their services from one provider rather than many, cutting the cost.
“Alpha Payments Cloud likens itself to the Android of the payments industry,” said a spokesperson for the company. “Just as Android centralised the non-iOS app ecosystem, APC wants to centralise the payments ecosystem. One single app or solution isn’t going to help, and that is the driving force behind Alpha Payments Cloud. By gathering many payment solutions in one place – this centralised app store – merchants and banks are able to truly choose the best payment solutions.”
The service is available across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.
