The customer is a domestic payment processor with over 35 years of experience in multi-brand electronic payment. They offer multi-brand, multi-technology, and multi-channel services for acceptance and acquisition, which are tailored to the needs of their customers.

They were associated with a test lab that needed an acquirer translator module to translate the proprietary transaction message format from the terminal and make it comply with the message format of one of the largest international payment schemes and vice versa. It will help the acquiring bank acceptance devices to get Level 3 certified with the payment schemes.

Challenges faced by the test lab in translating the message format according to the specifications of the payment scheme

1. They have to rely on the availability and accessibility of the real acquirer system, which was not cost-effective and time consuming for testing purposes
2. This solution was developed to deal with the complexity and variability of the acquirer system, which has different configurations, protocols, and validations for different payment schemes.
3. They have to troubleshoot and resolve any issues or errors that may arise during the testing process, which may require technical expertise and coordination with the acquirer system provide.

What did we do?

As a credible partner of this international payment scheme, we customized and deployed our cloud-based acquirer simulator leveraging Lithos host testing platform. We are one of the few organizations that provide solutions for acquirers, issuers, and networks using a cloud-based tool to test host simulators.

The acquirer simulator will sit between the customer's terminal host and the network host. During the certification phase with the payment scheme, the module translates the proprietary transaction messages that come from the terminal in real time manner, perform compliance validation, and sends the message to the payment schemes format.

On the other side, it receives the response messages from the payment scheme, converts the message to terminal message format, and sends the response back to the terminal. The translator module consists of the latest libraries of the payment scheme that will get patched whenever the scheme releases new specifications. The open architecture of Lithos allowed it to validate any transaction scenario, seamlessly covering all parties involved in the payment flow, from acquirers and issuers to terminals and schemes.

We built the translator module within two months and integrated it with the existing Lithos platform.

Benefits for the customer

This payments processor and the associated test lab can now debug and qualify thousands of its European acquiring partners for this international payment scheme with ease with this centralized acquirer - translator module following the host messaging guidelines of the payment scheme.

It reduced the timelines and cost of solution deployment as it is an over-the-counter solution. With this solution, the customer went to market in just two months for servicing level 3 testing and certification requests for this payment scheme from their acquiring partners. This also demonstrated that Lithos is an open platform which can simulate and validate any transaction type in the payments transaction flow such as the acquirer, issuer, terminal and the scheme.