Looking to the Future With a Simple Payment API Integration

People tend to gravitate toward simplicity. Customers want a simple approach to paying at the checkout, while merchants desire simple ways to process payments from said customers. While the technology that provides such convenience is readily available, it needs developers to make sure it complies with the latest standards. One of such standards, EMV, which became official in Oct. 2015, was rolled out with little thought about the complexity of the software architecture it would require. Up until now, payment gateway developers have faced strong headwinds when trying to fulfill the integration demands from their clients. However, things are about to change with the arrival of a new payment API.

EMV Integration Problem and Solution

EMV and the liability shift were meant to protect merchants and their customers from widespread fraud, which unfortunately old magnetic stripe cards were no longer doing effectively. However, the roll out of EMV following the liability shift proved to be more challenging than originally thought. “Business owners were expected to adhere to these new rules and now weren’t protected if there was a dispute when they didn’t dip the card versus swipe the card,” said Jae Haas, President at TransNational Payments. “It has become extremely difficult for developers to make the transition from magnetic stripe to chip, without requiring a structural renegotiation and extensive coding hours.” Since then, the EMV integration became the most sought after feature by software vendors, who still didn’t have access to it in its complete form even two years after the shift.

Today, TransNational Payments’ Pi (Perfect Integration) APi, finally offers such integration. It also takes it up a notch by supporting card present Quick Chip EMV, which has shown to reduce average in-store EMV transaction latency down to about 2–3 seconds. In addition, it solves the issue that previously required developers to navigate around a LAN firewall when installing countertop and mobile devices. Now both the development and installation features are focused on making the developer’s life as simple as possible.

Fight Fraudulent Transactions Smart

Fraud, especially in an e-commerce environment, has become a growing concern in recent years. In fact, in the recent holiday season, online credit card fraud saw a 22 percent growth, so the time to act is now. The Pi APi is the first solution of its kind to utilize a machine-learning AI fraud platform to detect and prevent fraudulent activity. Combining this feature with EMV integration results in a payment gateway solution that takes a proactive approach to helping developers protect their clients.

However, the intelligent approach to defense doesn’t stop there. One thing that definitely hasn’t been simple is cyberattacks. Every day, criminals around the world attempt to breach the defenses of businesses, for example, by using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. These types of attacks are more frequent than most people realize. As a customer of Business Wire, I know in Feb. of this year they were experiencing a directed and persistent DDoS attack attempting to disrupt their service portal. Like some other APIs, the Pi APi aims to leverage currently available capabilities to implement counter measures. Today, TransNational Payments does it by making the API 100% cloud-based. “Having everything in the cloud makes it a lot easier to redeploy servers and redirect traffic as needed in order to fight off a DDoS attack,” says Bryan Olson, Executive Vice President of Operations at TransNational Payments.

JSON + REST = a Match Made in the Cloud

While the Pi APi resides in the cloud, it’s something that resides inside the API itself that really makes a difference. That something is JSON and REST, which have now become industry standards for APIs. JSON presents itself as a strong alternative to a more verbose XML, especially in terms of agility required to support faster omni-channel payment experience. REST aligns with this goal by using less bandwidth, thus providing greater capacity for integrating more demanding applications.

An Open Platform for Forward-Looking Developers

APIs from companies like Stripe have been the go-to solutions for some time now. Although useable, the biggest challenge that developers often run into while relying on them is proprietary documentation, which only permits integration with payment processors it’s designed for. Modern web development is supposed to be all about seamlessly integrating various components in various solutions, and failing to provide an environment for that only leads to frustration and longer development. This is exactly why PI API is an open solution that can be integrated with any payment processor a developer wishes to work with. This forward-looking approach is designed to remove barriers for growth and creativity among software vendors and lead to a better experience for everyone in the payment industry.