Digital Transactions Authoritative, insightful and timely information for payments professionals
By Kevin Woodward
@DTPaymentNews
Fuzse, a new payments company targeting merchants that want seamless payment flows, is embracing software developers and independent software vendors as a way to reach them.
The Dallas-based company, founded by Lane Conner, a former executive at First American Payment Systems L.P., Century Payments, and most recently at Blue Star Payment Solutions, now Blue Star Sports, uses a gateway from 1stPayGateway LLC and boarding, underwriting, and operations from Anovia Payments LLC.
“Our philosophy is to find the [developer] shops that are finding the merchants to do business,” Conner tells Digital Transactions News. “We will be their strongest partner in helping them monetize their projects.”
The need for this type of service is strong, he says. “Web, app, and software developers put together great products, but it is then on their clients to survive,” Conner says in an email. “Many times those developers are using technology that is either outdated or cumbersome. So, we wanted to go to market with an approach of helping the developers by providing a world-class gateway option through 1Paygateway and a revenue share back for utilizing Fuzse.”
Fuzse’s strategy is a reflection of generally diminishing profit margins across industries, Conner says. “To stay relevant, you have to reinvent how you do business,” he says. “More and more businesses are heavily relying on developers to add a different layer to the way that they do business.”
For example, a mom-and-pop shop may have a distinctive Web presence or app, Conner says. “The merchants that we are trying to help are moving more and more to a digital economy. It is up to us to stay relevant and move there with them.”
Doing that requires forming partnerships and using new payments-business models, such as payment facilitation, when necessary. Payment facilitation enables merchants to quickly accept credit and debit cards. A third-party agent, such as a software developer, may sign the merchant agreement on behalf of an acquirer, which can expedite the boarding process and make the application pocess simpler for the merchant.
“I cannot tell you how many developers that I speak to on a daily basis have clients that need to have payment facilitation,” Conner says. “They want to ‘Uber-fy’ how they are going to market.” When consumers complete a ride in an Uber car the payment is automatically made in the Uber app without affirmation by the passenger. In effect, the payment becomes a secondary part of the Uber experience while the ride is the primary part.
“A good amount of our industry is still skeptical of payment facilitation,” Conner says, “but we were that way when Square hit the payment business. For the right merchant, payment facilitation is the way forward.”
Fuzse is open to serving merchant segments. Aside from the merchant having some type of technology—like a Web, app, or software need—Fuzse is not limiting the verticals it could serve, Conner says.
