Our platform has been designed from the beginning to provide flexibility and reduce the maintenance efforts of your payment operation.

Through our single integration, a microservices architecture composed of platform components and an abstracted and standardized means of processing transactions, we allow you to decouple your payments infrastructure. This grants you the opportunity to expand globally without struggles or delays.

Platform Components

The Switch payments Platform enables real-time transactions on an any-to-any basis: multi-channel, multi-network, multi-method and multi-currency. This abstraction feeds a shared, event-based database on top of which run multiple internal applications and external value added services. These make up our Platform Components.

The Switch Platform is composed of several cloud-agnostic micro services that can be deployed independently on cloud or on-premise security-certified servers. Microservices include Processing, Dynamic Routing, Reconciliation, Risk, Analytics, Dashboard, Merchant, Reporting, Event-Sourcing, Auth, Load-Balancers, Service Discovery, Monitoring, Logging and Security Services.

The Switch Platform is completely modular, and each Platform Component can consume both internal services or third party’s. This system architecture allows for maximum flexibility on custom setups.

Processing

The Switch Processing application uses the same abstractions for all transactions, regardless of them being synchronous or asynchronous, payins, payouts or marketplaces, redirection-based, pre-payments or post-payments, one-time or recurring. This way, you are able to add new payment channels without any changes in your code, while keeping your checkout experience fully customisable.

Dynamic Routing

Our Dynamic Routing component provides real-time switching capabilities which allow us to select the best provider for a given transaction.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation of incoming settlements against bank accounts is a complex process. This activity becomes even more challenging when a business relies upon multiple providers, with multiple reporting structures. Reconciliation helps oversee and uniformize transaction data towards thoughtful monitoring of your payment operations.

Risk

Fraud management tools perform differently based on specific business verticals and require trained models with high switching costs. This makes their integration to new providers a costly and time-consuming endeavour. Too often, fraud defense also comes at the cost of conversion rates. Switch makes extensive use of data to maintain the perfect balance between fighting fraud, keeping shopper friction to a minimum and switching processes as simple as they get.

Analytics

Switch uses Big Data technologies to capture, store, analyze, search, share and visualize voluminous and complex payment datasets. Our Platform transforms raw data into consumable information, generating valuable insights that empower payment managers to make better decisions.

Vault

In the payments industry, tokenization is the act of pseudonymization any sensitive information for secure storage and later use. The Switch Vault allows for the tokenization of any Switch parameter, this means it is even possible to use it in the creation of instruments for different charge types.

Core Concepts

Digital payments have been growing at a fast pace to support the ever evolving global commerce market. New means of payment, new regions, new regulation, new security guidelines, and new customer segments ensure the payments landscape is constantly shifting.

Adjusting to these new realities can be challenging and complex. Switch is here to simplify the process and put an end to the growing pains that come with expanding your business. Our platform was designed with flexibility in mind to support the growth of your payment operation. In order to achieve this, we defined core concepts in our architecture from the outset. These allowed us to maintain a single integration, no matter the payment method being processed, whilst giving you access to multiple Platform Components.

Providers

In the Switch Platform, a provider is a payments’ value chain stakeholder to which the Switch Processing application is connected to. Here are some examples of the providers we work with.

Payment Methods

In its broader definition, a payment method is any set of infrastructure and regulation that supports value exchange between a network of participants.

Cards are not the only way to pay for online transactions. Between bank transfers, direct debits, eWallets, mobile payments, local card schemes, pre-pay, post-pay and e-invoices, there are over 200 different types of alternative payment methods.

Our platform allows you to process transactions using any payment method, from traditional credit/debit cards to alternative payment methods or custom payment methods like private label, credit-to-consumer, and loyalty schemes.

In the complex and diverse world of payments, there are multiple payment methods available in multiple markets.

Channels

The concept of payment method and provider are interconnected in the sense that a given payment method may be available through several providers within the same market, the same way that a given provider may support multiple payment methods. They are also selected by two different entities, the method being chosen by the customer through the Switch Dashboard, and the provider defined by our Dynamic Routing module.

The combination of a payment method and a provider represents a channel in the Switch Platform. It is an actual medium that can be used to perform a financial transaction (e.g. Credit Card through Elavon, or Alipay through Worldpay).

A Switch channel is configured through the Switch Dashboard using the API keys for the merchant account that you have opened with the provider. By setting up multiple channels for the same payment method, and leveraging our Dynamic Routing component, you can define specific rules for real-time transaction routing between multiple providers.

Transactions

The diversity of the payments ecosystem poses a great challenge to global companies, as each payment channel requires its own specific integration, which is costly to build and maintain. As payment channels start to add up, companies become unable to optimize their payment operations in a timely manner.

With this challenge in mind, we devised a way to abstract every transaction flow in a single one, independent from the payment method, allowing companies to invest one time into integrating with our platform and gain access to the entire value chain without further development investments.

To this effect, we divide a financial transaction into multiple correlated steps, which we either call elements, or lifecycle events. Each of these steps represents a different phase in the transaction lifecycle within the Switch Platform, and therefore, requires and stores different data. Therefore, the concept of transaction within the Switch Platform can apply to every element after the creation of a charge and any element that requires communication with a provider.

Supporting different payment methods under the same platform in a standardized manner brings additional challenges when it comes to transaction execution. Each payment method is designed with its own philosophy when it comes to processing transactions, and therefore requires different steps, and different execution flows.

Accommodating this diversity under the same platform required us to support four transaction flows.

Elements

With the current and future variety of payment methods, ensuring they can conform to standardized operation is paramount. To be truly effective, the utilization experience of a payments platform should not require different integrations or execution flows.

Our platform defined elements to this effect, to allow a global way of handling payments in a single integration. By utilizing the elements described below we ensure our platform is future-proof, by handling any current and future payment methods in a uniform manner.

Lifecycle Events

The Switch Platform relies on a microservices' architecture to provide platform components besides the actual transaction processing. In order to achieve this, it uses an event-driven philosophy for cooperation and routing between services.

One added benefit of doing so is that it allows you to subscribe to notifications regarding the lifecycle of transactions. Examples of such notifications would include events like charge.created, instrument.authorized, or payment.success. These can be leveraged to orchestrate payment-related activities on your side.

Security

It takes a lot of effort to make sure payments are secure. Fraud can be costly for merchants and financial institutions, so it is important to ensure all types of threats, attacks, and suspicious activity is closely monitored. At Switch, we have six main security principles we follow when it comes to making sure your transactions are safe.

PCI DSS and PCI PIN

Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a set of security standards formed in 2004 by Visa, MasterCard, Discover Financial Services, JCB International, and American Express that aims to secure credit and debit card data transactions against data theft and fraud. The PCI Security Standards Council defines a set of requirements intended to ensure that all companies that process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment.

In short, PCI DSS is a set of regulations that apply to all entities that store, process, and/or transmit cardholder data. It covers technical and operational practices for system components included in or connected to environments with cardholder data. If you accept or process payment cards, PCI DSS applies to you. The criteria for Level 1 PCI DSS compliance depends on which card brands the merchant accepts, as follows:

• Visa, Mastercard, and Discover define Level 1 merchants as those processing more than 6 million credit card transactions annually;
• American Express’s minimum for Level 1 is 2.5 million transactions per year;
• JCB’s Level 1 starts at 1 million credit card transactions per year.

To meet PCI DSS Level 1 Standard there are five main required processes, which every compliant company like Switch must go through every year.

• Annual Report on Compliance (ROC) by a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) or Internal Security Assessor;
• Quarterly network scan by Approved Scan Vendor (ASV);
• Penetration test;
• Internal Scan;
• Submission of completed Attestation of Compliance form.

Around 250 requirements comprise the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard. You can find a simplified version of the requirements necessary to meet the PCI Compliance Security Standard Council’s goals in the table below.

TLS and HTTPS

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the basic communication protocol that both clients and servers must implement in order to be able to communicate. It transfers information between the browser and the server in clear text, allowing the network, through which the information passes, to see the information transmitted. HTTP Secure (HTTPS) was introduced to allow the client and the server to first establish an encrypted communication channel, and then pass the clear text HTTP messages through it.

It is crucial for payment security that merchants implement SSL protocol on their websites. Transport Layer Security (TLS), and its now-deprecated predecessor, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) allows for the encryption of the information that goes through the website, such as the payment card details that customers share during the checkout process.

HTTPS TLS provides three important security measures.

• Confidentiality. It protects communication between two parties from others within a public medium such as the internet.
• Integrity. It ensures information reaches its destined party in full and unaltered.
• Authentication. It grants that the website is actually what it claims to be by also checking its legal identity.

Two Factor-Authentication

Two-factor authentication is an extra layer of security designed to ensure that only the rightful users can access their respective accounts on the Switch Platform, namely by logging into the Switch Dashboard.

Two-Factor Authentication is enabled under settings for every user with access to the Dashboard.

API Keys

Different combinations between the Merchant API Keys or Processing API Keys and your account ID grant authentication in your requests. It is important to be well aware of when to use each of the keys and how to gain access to them. If you have any trouble with these, please contact our Support Team.

• Public Key. Used in requests coming from the client-side, to create dynamic forms and instruments.
• Account ID and Private Key. Used in requests coming from the merchant server, to create charges, payments, reversals, and refunds, as well as accessing management APIs. This key SHOULD NEVER BE SHARED in client-side code.

Fraud Prevention

For every transaction, there are multiple security steps that can be taken. These can be either automatically applied by Switch or are optional and can be enabled through our applications.

Tokenization

Tokenization helps to authenticate the customer during the purchase without affecting the security of a transaction. The process uses tokens which are random strings of characters that replace sensitive information, namely credit card numbers. Tokenization reduces the chances of a data breach because if a token is stolen, it has no use for fraudsters.

The Switch Vault allows for the tokenization of any Switch parameter. This means our application is not limited to card details but can go as far as being used to create instruments for different payment methods without the need for further input. The Vault Application grants:

1. PCI DSS-compliant transaction initiation using the same payment credentials in multiple providers;
2. Multi-channel use of the same payment instrument (e.g. in-store capture, online refund);
3. GDPR-compliant means of storing customer data for authentication (e.g. name, email, address, social security number).

3D Secure

3D Secure authentication is an additional security layer for card-not-present transactions. The name comes from Three Domain Secure, which is a messaging protocol that involves three domains, such as a bank, the technology that processes the transaction, and the issuing bank.

The system usually requests tokens or biometrics to authenticate cardholder information, which can decrease the number of fraudulent attempts. Additionally, by using 3DS the liability on every transaction that is successfully verified is shifted from a merchant to the issuing bank. You can enable 3D Secure Authentication using our Risk Application.

Switch Risk Application

The Risk Application exists to keep your transactions safe through straightforward methods that can be easily automated.

Risk is present in your transactions from the very start and it defines the ways in which these transactions are processed and settled. The goal of this application is not only to offer constant vigilance over your payment operation, but also aid you in understanding what went wrong and how it can be addressed. Risk rules are designed to trigger the following actions:

• Allow: Allow the creation of the flagged object;
• Block: Block the creation of the flagged object;
• Review: Set the creation of an object up for review;
• Enable 3DS: Enable request for 3D Secure authentication.

Stability and Scalability

At Switch, we understand that stability and scalability are big concerns for the businesses that work with us. There are multiple efforts we make towards ensuring our services and application are reliable.