Planet Payment has been recognized by APAC CIOOutlook Magazine as the recipient of “Most Promising Banking and Software Solution Companies,” based on our proprietary methodology, reflecting its position in the industry. This profile has been developed by the APAC CIOOutlook research and editorial team based on insights from an interview with Tommy Chau.

Planet Payment
Delivering Secure Payment Solutions

Tommy Chau, Managing Director, Asia Pacific

The pace at which organizations are adopting digitization, there lays no doubt that digital technologies have significantly fuelled customer demand and expectations. The banking and payment industry in particular has immensely benefited from this transition. Newer technologies automate the payment process whilst saving clients valuable time and efforts. Given the benefits, financial organizations, in particular, are trying to leverage technology into their processes. But, it is not without peril, newer technologies challenge the way banks operate and bring competition from other banking organizations. Therefore, to stay at the forefront of the industry, banks need to regularly upgrade their services. In the process, they need to rationalize factors such as money, time and most importantly, its ability to adapt to new technologies. Expertise from firms like Planet Payment comes as a savior here. Established in 1999, Planet Payment provides innovative payment processing solutions that mitigate the hurdles in deploying global electronic payments systems.

Planet Payment provides payment processing and multi-currency solutions. Tommy Chau, Managing Director, Asia Pacific, says, “We help consumers by providing choice and clarity at the point-of-sale - and improve the shopping experience in both the physical and e-Commerce worlds.” It’s comprehensive platform that manages the global connectivity and interaction between consumers, merchants, banks and payment networks helps to adapt to the new payment processes. The company provides two categories of services which include processing solutions and Merchants solutions. Through its processing solutions, the company offers banks services such as International payment processing, Clearing & settlement, Risk Management, DCC at ATM’s, Authorization & Capture and a Commercial services Platform. Planet Payment has also made strategic partnerships to process financial and non-financial transactions in emerging markets. Their innovative processing solutions have allowed them to overcome local and technical limitations in these frontiermarkets where cash is still dominant, to expand card acceptance and deliver value-add solutions that enable merchants there to conduct business more efficiently.

Through its Merchants solutions, the company provides Multi-currency Processing, e-commercePayments, POS Solutions, Fraud & Security Services, an International Hospitality gateway, Global Merchants Solutions and International Processing. Planet Payment’s multi-currency and domestic processing solutions are designed to helpPOS and e-Commerce merchantstarget international travelers or online shoppers, to help merchantseffectively attract and retain new customers.Its Pay in Your Currency solution lets merchants offer their international customers the choice to pay in the currency they know best – their own.DCC at ATMs provides banks and ATM providers the ability to offer their international cardholders the opportunity to withdraw money in a local currency, while knowing exactly how much was debited from their bank account in their own currency at the time of withdrawal.

With its Multi-Currency Pricing solution, online merchants can price goods and services in multiple currencies, while still receiving payment in their own currency. For merchants interested in targeting the Chinese market, Planet Payment’s UPOP solution enables them to expand their e-Commerce storefront to accept Union Pay payments. Its Planet Payment Gateway is a robust e-commerce payment application, which offers signature multi-currency processing services. And through its new strategic partnership with PAY.ON, the Planet Payment gateway can now also offer local and alternative payment acceptance, to further help merchants target markets abroad, as well as mobile payment integration.

Planet Payment provides innovative payment processing solutions that mitigate the hurdles in deploying global electronic payments systems

The company’s processing technologies related to card payment help banks to view their business status much before their investment. By using its propitiatory platform, banks can fully outsource their card payments processing. Every process built by the company is designed to offer services in a secure manner. “Once connected to our platform in one country, our customers and their merchants can use the same interfaces and point-of-sale devices in all other countries in which we operate,” says Tommy.

As the Banking industry heavily relies on trust, Planet Payment constantly tries to build and maintain faith with its every client. The organization tries to understand a client’s requirements and then delivers specific solution. Apart from it’sheadquarter in Hong Kong, the company plans to expand its reach in other Asia Pacific regions such as Japan, Korea, Thailand and Australia. As mobile commerce emerges as the future of the industry, the company is working with mobile phone providers to deploy its payment technologies. With the vision to see most of the banks utilize its solutions, Planet Payment is keen to align itself with every evolving technology.