Merchants looking to expand their operations at home and abroad must be able to support their customers’ preferred payment methods, but doing so is no easy feat. Whether they partner with multiple payment service providers (PSPs) or opt to develop in-house payment capabilities, making payments operations work is often resource-intensive because it requires a high degree of planning, coordination and strategy.
There are ways to effectively manage these logistical issues, however. A payments orchestration layer can serve as an intermediary between a merchant and its various PSPs while extending services that support payments analysis, regulatory compliance, cybersecurity, anti-fraud protection and more.
The inaugural Payments Orchestration Playbook, a PYMNTS and Spreedly collaboration, examines the ways in which merchants can streamline their payments operations to support domestic and international growth.
Around The Payments Orchestration Ecosystem
The COVID-19 pandemic is driving consumers online to shop and pay, and their rapidly changing shopping habits are forcing merchants to rethink their digital strategies. The most successful among them are adapting to this digital ecosystem by innovating new digital capabilities, as Justin Benson, CEO of cloud-based payments platform Spreedly, noted in an interview with PYMNTS. He also stressed the importance of working with providers that can streamline know your customer (KYC) processes to help merchants mitigate the growing risk of cybercrime.
Cybercrime has been growing during the pandemic, with instances of fraud on the rise and the average value of attempted fraudulent transactions having increased by $26. At the same time, 
eCommerce purchasing volumes are surging, with the month of April seeing a 23.5 percent year-over-year increase since 2019. Enforcing strong security measures is thus becoming even more crucial, and partnering with PSPs can help merchants achieve this.
For more information on these stories and other payments orchestration headlines, download the Playbook.
eBay On The Importance Of Streamlining International Payments Operations
Supporting local payment methods, ensuring international anti-money laundering (AML) and KYC compliance and tracking currency exchange rates can strain merchants’ resources, but doing so is necessary to support local payment methods. For this month’s Feature Story, PYMNTS interviewed Keala Gaines, head of global payments services at eBay, about how the marketplace works to 
alleviate such logistical challenges for the sellers on its platform.
Deep Dive: Navigating The International Payments Landscape
The COVID-19 pandemic has amplified consumers’ demands for digital payment options, but many merchants are not equipped to manage the logistical requirements that are necessary to provide different national markets’ preferred methods. In this month’s Deep Dive, PYMNTS explores how payment orchestration providers (POPs) can help international expansion efforts.
About The Playbook
The Payments Orchestration Playbook, a PYMNTS and Spreedly collaboration, is a monthly report series examining how merchants can optimize their payments processes to satisfy customers and maximize their revenues.