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Your payment requirements are unique
A global airline does not have the same payment requirements as a retailer.
A retailer doesn't have the same requirements as a subscription business.
And a marketplace processing millions of €10 transactions faces completely different challenges from a luxury business accepting transactions worth €20,000 or more.
Even within the same company, requirements can vary dramatically.
You may need to accept:
Online payments.
In-store payments.
MOTO transactions.
Recurring payments.
High-value transactions.
Micro-transactions.
Multiple currencies.
Local payment methods.
Cross-border transactions.
Cross-channel customer journeys.
Then multiply those requirements across countries.
Payment habits in the Netherlands are different from those in Germany.
Brazil is different from the United States.
Australia is different from France.
Consumers expect different payment methods. Acquiring structures change. Regulation changes. Fraud patterns change. Economics change.
What appears to be one global payment infrastructure is often dozens of local payment ecosystems operating simultaneously.
Your RFP needs to capture that complexity.
The most important part of an RFP happens before it is sent
A common mistake is starting with the providers.
We start with the merchant.
Before asking a PSP what it can offer, we help determine what your organization actually needs.
That means understanding your current and future payment environment:
- markets and currencies;
- transaction volumes and average transaction values;
- online, in-store and MOTO channels;
- recurring versus one-off transactions;
- existing PSPs, acquirers and gateways;
- payment-method requirements;
- authorization performance;
- fraud and chargebacks;
- settlement and treasury requirements;
- reconciliation;
- tokenization;
- reporting;
- technical architecture;
- operational requirements;
- planned geographic expansion.
We work with the relevant stakeholders across Payments, Finance, Treasury, Procurement, Technology, E-commerce, Retail, Risk and Operations.
Then we translate those requirements into a payment RFI or RFP designed specifically for your organization.
Not a generic payment questionnaire.
An RFP designed to reveal the differences that will actually matter once the contract is signed.
Thousands of payment providers. A much shorter list of providers that are right for you.
One of the most difficult questions is also one of the earliest:
Who should you invite to the RFP?
The largest brand is not automatically the best provider.
Neither is the cheapest.
A provider may have exceptional capabilities in Europe but limited relevance in Latin America.
Another may offer excellent e-commerce acquiring but not meet your in-store requirements.
One provider may be particularly strong for recurring payments. Another for local acquiring. Another for high-value transactions.
And sometimes the optimal solution isn't one provider at all.
Our role is to help identify the providers that genuinely deserve to be considered based on your business model, markets, payment flows and strategic objectives.
Comparing PSP proposals is harder than comparing prices
Then the responses arrive.
And this is where payment procurement gets particularly complicated.
Different providers structure their solutions differently.
They also structure their pricing differently.
One proposal may bundle services that another separates between acquiring, gateway, authentication, tokenization and fraud.
There may be different fees by market, card type, payment method or currency.
There may be cross-border costs, FX margins, minimum commitments, authorization fees, refund fees, chargeback fees and dozens of other commercial components.
Two offers that appear similar on the first page can have very different economics when applied to your actual transaction mix.
We normalize the proposals so you can compare like with like.
And we help your teams look beyond the headline processing rate to understand the actual commercial and operational impact of each proposal.
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Because the cheapest PSP can become the most expensive decision
Processing cost matters.
But it is only one variable.
Imagine saving a few basis points on processing while negatively affecting authorization performance.
Or selecting a provider with attractive global pricing that requires expensive local workarounds in your fastest-growing markets.
Or discovering after implementation that reconciliation, reporting or settlement requirements were not adequately covered during procurement.
For large merchants, the consequences can quickly exceed the savings negotiated during the RFP.
That's why our evaluation can cover much more than price:
Acceptance performance.
Acquiring capabilities.
Geographic coverage.
Payment methods.
Technology.
Fraud.
Tokenization.
Reporting and reconciliation.
Settlement.
Operational resilience.
Implementation.
Service levels.
Commercial terms.
Scalability.
And importantly, we weight those criteria according to your priorities.
Then comes the negotiationµ
This is where experience matters.
Payment providers negotiate commercial agreements every day.
Most large merchants don't.
Even sophisticated procurement teams may only conduct a major payment RFP or acquiring negotiation every few years.
That creates an information asymmetry.
Providers know their pricing models.
They know where margins sit.
They know which components are negotiable.
They know what comparable merchants are asking for.
And they know how far they are prepared to move to win strategic business.
Your negotiating team should understand those dynamics too.
eFlow brings more than a decade of hands-on payments experience to the merchant's side of the table.
We help analyze commercial proposals, challenge pricing, identify unnecessary fees, compare commercial structures and negotiate the conditions that matter.
Because at enterprise scale, seemingly small differences aren't small.
On €1 billion of annual payment volume, one basis point represents €100,000.
Five basis points?
€500,000.
Every year.
And processing margins are only one component of the overall payment economics that can be negotiated.
You have a procurement team. Why bring in a payments consultant?
Because payments is unusually specialized.
Your procurement team knows how to run an RFP.
Your payments team knows your infrastructure.
Your finance team knows your economics.
Your technology team knows your architecture.
eFlow brings market knowledge from the other side of the table.
We understand how payment providers operate, how payment propositions are structured, where commercial differences hide and which questions need to be asked before committing to a multi-year relationship.
We don't replace your internal teams.
We strengthen them.
Independent advice. On your side of the table.
For these engagements, eFlow's role is purely advisory.
We help you:
Define the payment strategy.
Translate requirements into an RFI/RFP.
Identify the right providers to approach.
Challenge provider responses.
Compare proposals objectively.
Evaluate technical and commercial fit.
Negotiate pricing and contractual economics.
Support your teams through final selection.
The ultimate provider relationship remains between you and the providers you select.
Our job is to help make sure you make that decision with the right information, market knowledge and negotiating position.
When billions flow through your payment infrastructure, small decisions become big numbers
Payments are often one of the largest variable cost centers of a digital or retail business.
They are also directly connected to revenue.
That makes payment provider selection unusual.
The right decision can simultaneously reduce costs, improve payment performance and create a stronger infrastructure for future growth.
But extracting that value requires understanding an increasingly complex global payment ecosystem.
If you're preparing a payment RFI or RFP, reviewing your acquiring relationships, expanding internationally or approaching a major payment contract renewal, talk to eFlow before you go to market.
Put decades of payment experience on your side of the table.
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