Service · Software development

Custom payment platform development.

A custom payment platform that runs on top of Mollie, Adyen, Stripe or any other PSP. Multi-PSP routing, payment cascading on declines, reconciliation and marketplace payouts, all under a single API, built into your own workflow.

Multi-PSP orchestrationPayment cascadingPSD2 & SCAPCI-DSS-light architectureMarketplace payouts

We don't replace your PSP; we orchestrate on top of it.

Mollie, Adyen, Stripe, Buckaroo, MultiSafepay, Worldline, Ingenico, Klarna, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay: each of these providers does what it does best, whether that's card processing, local payment methods, settlement with the issuer or fraud screening per network. Building your own payment platform doesn't mean replacing them. It means adding a layer on top that brings multi-PSP routing, cascading on declines, reconciliation and payouts together into one coherent system, shaped to your business rules, your own data model and your finance and support teams' workflows.

We build that layer bespoke for marketplaces, SaaS companies, platform businesses, e-commerce growth companies, fintech start-ups, banks and insurers. No white-label product from someone else, no off-the-shelf PSP aggregator: your own payment middleware, with your commission engine, your KYC flow and your reporting at its centre. What you get is control over transaction costs, over downtime, and over data that a standard PSP portal never shows at the right level of aggregation.

The term "payment orchestration" often comes up alongside "payment middleware" or "payments for platforms", and that's no coincidence. It's all the same story from a slightly different angle: how do you stay in control of your payment flows while leaving the heavy compliance, licensing and card network matters to specialist parties? You build the layer where your business happens, and connect it to the layer where the market is strongest.

Three flavours of payment platform.

Which one fits depends on what the platform needs to do and how deep the orchestration goes. We'll advise which direction suits your business in the first conversation.

Compact project · fixed sprint budget

Payment middleware on a single PSP

One API for your own application, with Mollie, Adyen or Stripe underneath. A reconciliation engine that matches payments to orders or invoices, a customer portal for self-service payment methods, and your own administration of refunds and chargebacks. Suitable if you're currently stitching loose webhooks together and want control over your transaction data.

Single APIReconciliationWebhook managementRefund flow
Mid-sized project · fixed sprint budget

Multi-PSP orchestration with cascading

Two or more PSPs under a single API, with intelligent routing per transaction (cost, success rate, card type, region). Payment cascading: when a transaction is declined, it is automatically retried via a second PSP. PSP failover during downtime. A dashboard showing how each provider performs and where you're leaving margin on the table.

Multi-PSP routingPayment cascadingPSP failoverCost optimisation
Larger project · fixed sprint budget

Payments for platforms (marketplace & SaaS)

For marketplaces, platform businesses and SaaS companies with multi-vendor flows. Per-transaction payment splits, a commission engine, payouts per seller or partner, and a KYC flow for onboarding. Works on top of Stripe Connect, Adyen for Platforms or Mangopay; we build the custom workflow and reporting layer where those standard products run out.

Payment splitsCommission engineVendor payoutsOnboarding flow

The building blocks of a payment platform.

Which building blocks belong on your platform depends on your business. Below are the components we most often combine, selectively rather than all at once.

Routing

Multi-PSP routing

Automatically select the right provider for each transaction based on rules you define yourself: lowest cost for this card type, highest historical success rate for this region, or a dedicated provider for a specific payment method. The difference between "we use Mollie" and "we use Mollie for Dutch iDEAL and Adyen for cross-border card traffic" becomes a configuration change rather than a rebuild.

Cascading

Payment cascading on declines

A declined transaction doesn't have to be a lost one. For a soft decline, we automatically retry through a second PSP, often with a different risk engine or bank route. This recovers part of the failures you currently lose silently, without the end user noticing anything.

Failover

PSP failover during downtime

A PSP has an outage, which isn't unthinkable and happens somewhere in the market every quarter. Health checks detect the failure, and traffic switches automatically to the backup PSP until the primary is available again. For high-volume businesses, this alone is the business case for orchestration.

Reconciliation

Reconciliation engine

Settlement files from each PSP have their own format and timing. We match them automatically against your orders or invoices, flag discrepancies, and make sure your books balance at month end without your finance team digging through spreadsheets.

Refunds

Refund and chargeback management

A single workflow in which refunds are requested, approved, passed on to the right PSP and reconciled back into your accounts. Chargebacks are logged, evidence is gathered, and the dispute process with the PSP runs from the same dashboard.

Subscriptions

Subscription billing and dunning

Recurring payments, proration on plan changes, trial periods and retry flows for failed payments. What a standard PSP often handles in a limited way becomes business logic that fits your product. More detail on the page about a subscription management platform.

Splits

Marketplace payouts and payment splits

One customer payment, several recipients: your platform, one or more sellers and possibly a fee receiver. Stripe Connect, Adyen for Platforms or Mangopay often form the underlying layer, and we build the business rules for commissions, scheduling and KYC on top of that.

Self-service

Customer portal for end users

End users want to change their payment methods, view their invoice history, pause a subscription or request refunds, without your support team having to get involved at every step.

What you get at the end.

A production-ready payment platform with the building blocks described below, plus everything you need to manage and extend it yourself.

  • A custom payment APIA single endpoint for your frontend and backend that communicates with the right PSP behind the scenes. Version-controlled, documented, with a staging environment.
  • PCI DSS-light architectureCard data never touches your servers. We use tokenisation via the PSPs, so your scope stays limited to SAQ-A where possible.
  • Reconciliation engineAutomatic matching of settlement files against your invoices or orders, with a manual resolution flow for discrepancies.
  • Self-service customer portalEnd users can view their invoice history, manage payment methods, request refunds and pause or cancel subscriptions.
  • Admin dashboardFor your finance and operations team: search transactions, process refunds, track chargebacks and export settlement reporting to your accounting software.
  • Codebase and architecture overviewFull source code, deployment instructions and documentation. No vendor lock-in.
  • Management contract (optional)Monitoring, PSP updates, SCA flow maintenance, security patches and ongoing development under a fixed monthly agreement.

When a custom payment platform is the right choice.

A few patterns we guide clients through. If you recognise one, we'd be happy to talk through what it could deliver for you.

Marketplace

Multi-vendor payouts and commission

Customers pay you, you pay out to vendors, minus commission, minus any dispute reserves, with an audit trail for every transaction. Stripe Connect or Adyen for Platforms handle the basic plumbing, but you'll want your payout, onboarding-check and reporting workflow fully in your own hands.

SaaS and subscriptions

Recurring billing and usage-based pricing

Trial periods, proration on plan changes, dunning for failed payments, usage-based invoicing based on metering data. Off-the-shelf tools cover parts of this, but combining it with your product logic almost always ends up bespoke. See also our subscription management platform.

E-commerce growth

Transaction costs become a problem

At volume, a few basis points' difference between PSPs really costs money. An orchestration layer that picks the cheapest or best-performing provider per transaction, with cascading fallback on declines, often pays for itself many times over.

Platform businesses

Paying drivers, sellers or service providers

An Uber-style model: an end user pays your platform, and you settle with the party delivering the service. Payment splits, batched payouts and KYC at onboarding are all manageable with a dedicated orchestration layer.

Fintech startups

Your own PSP licence or payments MVP

If you're working towards your own PSP licence or payment institution under DNB supervision, you need a platform that supports compliance requirements: AML/KYC screening, fraud monitoring, SCA, settlement administration. See also our KYC and AML compliance software.

Banks and insurers

Payment portal for customers

Not a replacement for your core, but a modern customer portal for premium payments, invoice payments, direct debits or split payments. It runs on top of your existing payment infrastructure. Compare this with our approach to a core banking platform.

Not yet sure about a large project?

Test your idea first: a working prototype in 1 day

With OneDayBuild, we turn your idea into something tangible in one day for €1,150, so you can see whether further development is worth the investment. Decide to go ahead with the full build? Then we credit the full cost.

Explore OneDayBuild →

How a payment platform project runs.

1

Introduction and flow audit

A conversation to understand how money currently moves through your organisation: which PSPs, which costs, where failures occur, which manual reconciliation steps exist. We map the scope and the real pain points before writing a single line of code.

2

Architecture and compliance scope

A workshop with your team, often including finance and compliance, to agree the target architecture, PSP choice and PCI DSS scope. You end up with a plan on the table and a realistic scope for the first release.

3

Building in sprints

Each sprint delivers a working build with the payment flow end to end. You test along in a staging environment with sandbox PSP keys. After several sprints, you have an MVP that you can take live in a limited production environment.

4

Rollout, monitoring and ongoing development

Phased rollout across your full transaction volume, setting up monitoring and alerting, and training for your finance and support teams. This is followed by a maintenance agreement that leaves room for ongoing development: adding new PSPs, new payment methods and new market rules.

Compliance: what we do and don't cover.

A payment platform touches several compliance regimes at once. We don't claim an audit role; we deliver the technology that makes compliance achievable and work alongside your internal or external specialists.

PSD2 / PSD3

Strong Customer Authentication

SCA flows and 3DS2 are provided by the PSP. We make sure your checkout and backend pass the right signals and that exemption flows, such as low-value or trusted-beneficiary, are requested correctly where that is safe. PSD3 changes are handled without a rebuild, as the relevant logic sits in one place.

PCI DSS

Tokenisation and SAQ-A scope

Card data never touches your servers. We use hosted fields or PSP redirects and work only with tokens. This keeps your PCI scope almost always within SAQ-A, the lightest compliance level, with a correspondingly lower audit burden.

AML / KYC

Onboarding for marketplaces and fintech

On marketplaces for vendor onboarding, and in fintech for client onboarding under DNB supervision. We integrate with your PSP's KYC tooling or build a custom flow with external verification providers. See also KYC and AML compliance software.

GDPR

PII encryption and data residency

Payment data is sensitive PII. We apply encryption at rest and in transit by default, role-based access to the admin dashboard, an audit log of who viewed or changed what, and data residency in a European region of your choice.

iDIN and eIDAS

Identity verification for financial services

For flows where you need to reliably identify an end user, such as premium purchases, financial services or age verification, we integrate iDIN or an eIDAS-compliant identity provider into the payment flow without harming checkout conversion.

Wft / AFM / DNB

For banks, insurers and fintech

For financial institutions, we review Wft requirements and AFM/DNB reporting obligations where relevant. We don't produce audit reports ourselves, but we build the logging, retention and export functionality that lets your compliance officer compile them.

Frequently asked questions.

What clients usually want to know before starting a payment platform.

Do you replace Mollie, Adyen or Stripe?
No. Those providers still handle the actual payment processing, as they hold the licences, the banking connections and the relationships with card schemes. We build the layer on top: a single API for your application, multi-PSP routing under the hood, your own reconciliation and your own customer portal. Switching or adding a PSP then becomes a configuration choice rather than a rebuild project.
What is the difference between a payment platform and payment orchestration?
Payment orchestration is one component of a payment platform. It is the routing layer that decides, per transaction, which PSP processes the payment, with cascading on declines and failover during downtime. A full payment platform also includes reconciliation, refund management, subscription billing, marketplace payouts and a customer portal, among other things. Which components you need depends on your business model.
How do you handle PSD2 and SCA (Strong Customer Authentication)?
SCA is a responsibility we partly leave with the PSP. Mollie, Adyen and Stripe provide the SCA flows and 3DS2 integration. We make sure your checkout and backend pass on the right signals (transaction amount, IP, device data) and that exemption flows, such as low-value or trusted-beneficiary exemptions, are requested correctly where that can be done safely. This lets you balance conversion and compliance within the PSD2 rules.
What does your approach mean for PCI DSS?
By default we build a PCI DSS-light architecture: card data is tokenised directly by the PSP via a hosted field or redirect, and your servers only see the token. This keeps your scope almost always within SAQ-A, the lightest compliance level. If you have a use case where you still need to handle card details, we discuss upfront how to minimise the scope.
Can you build marketplace payouts with payment splits?
Yes. For multi-vendor marketplaces we usually work with Stripe Connect, Adyen for Platforms or Mangopay as the underlying layer, and build the commission engine, payout scheduling, vendor onboarding and KYC flow on top. This keeps the licensing and compliance burden with the PSP, while you retain control of the business logic and data.
How do you handle subscription billing and dunning?
Recurring billing can be handled in several ways: directly through the PSP, through an intermediate layer such as Stripe Billing, or entirely in-house. For SaaS platforms with proration, usage-based billing and dunning flows, custom logic is usually the most sensible option. More details on that approach are on our page about subscription management platforms.
Which compliance requirements do you take into account?
Standard PSD2/PSD3, SCA, PCI-DSS scope and GDPR. For marketplaces and platforms, AML/KYC screening during vendor onboarding is often also included. For financial institutions, we look at Wft requirements and AFM/DNB reporting where relevant. We don't claim an audit role. We deliver the technology and work alongside your compliance officer or an external adviser.
What determines the cost of a payment platform?
Mainly the number of PSPs you orchestrate, whether marketplace payouts or subscriptions are involved, and how far you want reconciliation and reporting to extend into your accounting. A payment middleware on a single PSP is a fundamentally different project from an orchestration platform with cascading, marketplace splits and custom KYC. After the first conversation, we provide a targeted estimate based on the scope.
How long before we can go live?
A first payment middleware on a single PSP can be up and running in a staging environment within a few sprints. For an orchestration platform with multiple PSPs, cascading and marketplace payouts, we're looking at a project spanning several sprints, with a phased release in which we first route part of the volume through it.

Talk to us about your payment platform.

A free, no-obligation half-hour introductory call. We'll listen to your payment flow, your PSP setup and your goals, and give you direction you can act on, whether it's payment middleware, multi-PSP orchestration or marketplace payouts.

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