Cloud Payment Gateway Slashes Merchant Costs by 50% for a US Acquirer

THE CLIENT 

A US Merchant Acquirer That Needed Its Own Competitive Processing Solution 

The client is a US-based merchant acquirer serving a broad merchant base across retail, e-commerce, and restaurant segments. 

To remain competitive and help merchants improve profitability, the acquirer needed to launch a modern card-processing solution with flexible pricing and high performance. 

Achieving that required overcoming significant architectural limitations and integrating with multiple complex processor platforms simultaneously. 

Opus was brought in to design and deliver a future-ready payment gateway from the ground up. 

THE CONTEXT 

No Scalable Architecture. No Multi-Processor Integration. No Competitive Solution. 

Three structural gaps blocked the acquirer from launching a competitive offering: 

• Merchant transaction pricing too high to compete: Without owning its own processing solution, the acquirer could not control fee structures or offer the pricing flexibility that merchants in retail, e-commerce, and restaurant segments expected, leaving revenue and merchant relationships on the table 
• No scalable architecture capable of handling transaction growth: Existing systems were not built for rapid volume expansion, making a cloud-native, microservices-based platform a prerequisite for any solution that could grow with the business without requiring architectural rebuilds 
• No live integrations with the major processor networks: The acquirer had no connectivity with TSYS Sierra, Fiserv Rapid Connect, FIS Worldpay, or Chase, blocking it from launching a production-ready card-processing solution and generating the incremental revenue stream the business needed
  

WHAT OPUS ENGINEERED 

A Cloud-Native Payment Gateway Built for Multi-Processor Scale and PCI Compliance 

Opus designed and built a production-ready card-processing platform covering architecture, integrations, compliance, and operational enablement: 

• Cloud-native microservices architecture: A cloud-agnostic, microservices-based platform built to support high transaction volumes, resilience, and rapid scalability across merchant segments 

• Multi-processor integrations delivering seamless connectivity with:  

• TSYS Sierra 

• Fiserv Rapid Connect (Nashville and Omaha) 

• FIS Worldpay (610 ISO interface) 

• Chase (online and batch, 120-byte format) 

• Comprehensive card processing capabilities: Both card-present and card-not-present transactions, including contact and contactless payments across Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and Discover networks 

• Operational and compliance enablement: End-of-day capture for host and terminal transactions, processor certifications for retail, e-commerce, and restaurant use cases, and PCI certification support with higher-environment release management 

• Production-ready platform features: Unified transaction routing across multiple processors, batch processing, automated end-of-day capture, built-in failover, and real-time monitoring 

THE SHIFT 

New Revenue. Lower Merchant Costs. A Stronger Market Position. 

The cloud-native gateway delivered immediate and measurable business outcomes across revenue, pricing, and competitive positioning: 

• The acquirer launched a net-new card-processing solution, creating an incremental revenue stream that did not exist before the engagement 

• Merchant transaction pricing dropped by approximately 50% compared to competing offerings, directly improving profitability for the acquirer’s retail, e-commerce, and restaurant clients 

• The acquirer gained full control over its own fee structures, enabling it to compete on price and terms in ways it previously could not 

• A scalable, merchant-centric processing platform now positions the acquirer for long-term growth without architectural rebuilds as transaction volumes increase 

Ready to build a competitive payment gateway with multi-processor connectivity? Explore Opus Platform Build and Engineering and Payments capabilities at opustechglobal.com/platform-build-and-engineering