CLIENT

SME-focused European acquirer licensed in the EU and headquartered in the Netherlands, serving merchants across retail, e-commerce, and services.
Processes thousands of card transactions daily across multiple markets, with scheme connectivity and established banking partnerships.

CHALLENGE

As the acquirer scaled, its legacy merchant portal evolved in fragments over many years. What began as a functional back office turned into a slow, hard-to-navigate system that no longer matched the company’s brand or the needs of modern SMEs.

1. Aging architecture & performance bottlenecks.

Decades-old code paths, heavy pages, and minimal caching led to slow page loads and time-consuming daily workflows.

2. Unintuitive UX for daily operations.

Fragmented navigation, inconsistent flows, and limited search/filters forced teams to spend extra time finding data and completing routine tasks.

3. Visual inconsistency with the brand.

Outdated interface elements and styling didn’t reflect the brand’s quality, reducing trust and hurting the overall perception of the platform.

SOLUTION

To rebuild a merchant portal that truly reflects the brand and user needs, we designed a modern, cloud-native platform focused on clarity, speed, and usability.
The new UI delivers a consistent experience across payment operations, strengthens brand identity, and empowers merchants to act faster through intuitive navigation and real-time insights.

1. Infrastructure.

Cloud-native architecture with automated deployment and continuous monitoring - designed for scalability and resilience. (Currently under implementation.)

2. Security.

Multi-layer protection at both application and infrastructure levels, including data encryption, secret management, and audit logging to ensure compliance with payment industry standards.

3. Automation.

Continuous integration and testing pipelines are in place, with extended regression automation currently in progress to improve release reliability.

4. Integrations.

Core payment processing integrations are complete - new connectors and third-party APIs are planned for the next release cycle to expand PSP coverage.

5. Team.

Design Director, Senior UI/UX Designer, Senior Software Engineer, QC Engineer, DevOps Engineer.

TECHNICAL IMPACT

1. Performance & User Experience.

31% faster page loads, achieving a green Google PageSpeed Insights score. Faster delivery improves UX, crawlability, and organic rankings.

2. Operational Efficiency.

Routine engineering workload reduced by 28% via process automation and CI/CD optimization, unlocking time for higher-value tasks.

3. Security & Compliance.

Libraries and APIs updated to current industry standards (e.g., PCI DSS/ISO-aligned practices), reducing exposure to vulnerabilities and audit risk.

4. Unified Technology Stack.

A consolidated, scalable stack decreases the bus factor and increases overall system sustainability and scalability. Maintenance becomes simpler; cross-team handoffs are cleaner.

5. Permission Management.

A more flexible, intuitive permission manager enables precise access control and clearer auditability.

BUSINESS OUTCOMES

1. Merchant Retention.

Improved satisfaction and retention due to intuitive design and faster access to key data

2. Operational Efficiency.

Reduced daily operations and support requests, and onboarding time for new merchants

3. Decision Making.

Better visibility into transactions and analytics enables data-driven business actions

4. Brand Perception.

Modern UI/UX strengthens trust and perceived innovation of the platform

5. Conversion & Upsell.

Clearer dashboards and flows lead to higher engagement and adoption of extra services