PURPOSE: This article describes the initial discovery phase with APEXX and some of the information that our Implementations team needs to kick-off the merchant onboarding.



TABLE OF CONTENTS




1. The initial discovery phase



During the initial discovery phase, you will meet with one of our Implementations manager to discuss your integrations with APEXX, the key milestones, and agree on timelines. There are some questions that our Implementations team will ask you to better understand your business and ensure that all aspects of your business are covered in our onboarding plan. 



  • The nature of your business: what are you selling, and to whom?
  • What aspects of your payment processing are you hoping to improve (fees, acceptance rate...)?
  • Which markets are you active in/in which currencies do you trade?
  • What is your settlement currency?
  • Which legal entities do you expect to onboard?
  • Your average transaction value
  • The transaction volume we can expect
  • Your current acceptance rates
  • Who are your current payment services providers/acquirers?
  • What are the reporting requirements of the different stakeholders in your organisation?
  • What are your reconciliation data requirements?
  • Does your application capture card data (requires level 1 PCI compliance)?
  • What fraud checking do you wish to carry out?
  • Who are the key contacts in your organisation APEXX will be working with?



2. Configuration Structure


Your Implementations Manager will use this information to propose a configuration structure to you that reflects the different parts of your business


Organisations are set up in APEXX in a hierarchical manner, with sub-organisations at multiple levels reporting into parent organisations. For example, organisations can be set-up based on your company's existing structure, e.g. subsidiary, vertical, or region.



Your Implementations Manager will agree the configuration structure that best reflects your needs with you.




3. Capturing card data and your PCI status documentation

There are three options for capturing card data: 


  1. The merchant captures the card details directly and passes them to APEXX in the payment request (with or without tokenisation) - this option requires the merchant to be PCI Level 1 certified.
  2. The customer enters their card details on APEXX's hosted payment page. This can be done either using a full page redirect, or (more commonly) an iframe that is embedded on the merchant's website. The merchant is not exposed to the card data at any time, but can request a token in the payment request.
  3. The customer goes through your checkout as normal and enters their card details. The card is then encrypted and send to APEXX in the request, and the merchant is not exposed to the card data, though a token can be requested in the payment request. 



NOTE APEXX will ask you to provide your Attestation of Compliance (AOC) if you are a PCI Level 1 certified merchant, or your Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ). 



4. Integration methods

APEXX proposes a wide range of integrations methods to choose from depending on your business requirements or your growth plan. These integration methods will be discussed with you at the initial discovery phase.


  • Direct : a direct connection to your acquirer, with or without a third-party gateway
  • Hosted Payment Page: you can enable a full page redirect or an iframe onto your website. For a more customised experience, we have enhanced the look and feel of our HPP to allow you to customise it according to your branding. 
  • BNPL: we have partnered with an array of BNPL providers so that you can provide choice and flexibility to your customers
  • APMs: you can offer your customers to use the alternative payment method or local payment method, they are more familiar with at checkout, including PayPal, Bancontact, iDEAL etc.



5. MID set-up


If you sign up with a new acquiring bank as part of your implementation, it usually takes around ten working days for the onboarding process to complete and for live MIDs to be issued. You can proceed with your development and testing efforts in the meantime.



6. Testing and test runs


Most acquirers provide card numbers for simulation testing. However, these cannot be used to test the live system end-to-end. You will need to consider how you will obtain a card for testing purposes, especially if you are dealing with a local card brand that may not be straightforward to source. 


You can also discuss sone of the tests that should forn part of your user acceptance testing (UAT) including which integration methods to test and how, which payment types or currencies, a well as the APEXX features that you are planning on enabling.



We have put together a series of test scripts that you can use to assist you with your UAT:



7. Ramp-up and go-live


Your APEXX Implementations Manager will accompany you in your go-live planning, including the ramp-up or hypercare phases. 


Merchants will commonly start the go-live process by routing a limited amount of transactions through APEXX and monitor the result. Once the merchant and APEXX are confident that transactions are processing without errors and that acceptance rates are at the level expected, the transaction volume is then increased. A comparison with the merchant's existing data will allow us to assess how well the APEXX services are performing





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