Challenge

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One of our clients, a cross-regional payment processor, has decided to harmonize their technology house built over the decades of their business consolidation history.  Over this time, their services had evolved with divergent transaction processing rules, message formats, field locations, data content, and technical documentation standards.

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These variations created substantial operational challenges:

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• The technology delivery costs increased, due to maintaining parallel technical implementations

• There were higher operational overhead from supporting divergent processes and specifications

• Due to inconsistent documentation and data standards, there was an increase in complexity of support  

• Customer’s experienced suboptimal support, because of fragmented service delivery approaches

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Solution

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Explicit Selection was engaged to conduct a comprehensive gap analysis across three critical operational domains, from a technical specification point of view: Authorization, Clearing & Settlement, and Disputes.  

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The goal was to:

1. Identify and document all technical differences across product specifications

2. Assess the business and operational impact of these gaps

3. Provide actionable recommendations for consolidation and standardization

4. Benchmark the proposed unified approach against industry standards and best practices

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This multi-phase initiative aimed to create a roadmap toward unified technical specifications for credit products, ultimately simplifying operations, reducing costs, and enhancing the customer experience.

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Phase 1: Authorization

During this phase, we focused on comparing authorization-related technical specifications across product lines, covering:

• Authorization transaction processing rules and logic

• Authorization interfaces and protocols

• Network authorization services

• Transaction messaging standards and formats

• System usage and implementation guides

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Key outcomes

• Established baseline understanding of authorization specification differences

• Identified critical gaps impacting transaction processing capabilities

• Provided strategic direction for documentation consolidation

• Validated approach against payment industry standards

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Phase 2: Clearing &Settlement

This phase expanded the analysis to clearing and settlement functionality, examining:

• File exchange processes and sequences

• Settlement timing and cadence requirements

• Data transmission mechanics (FTP, web portals, APIs, etc.)

• Entity taxonomy (Issuing Processors, Issuers, Acquirer Processors, Acquirers, Merchants, Merchant Agents)

• Transaction data structures and supplementary data records

• Nine major document categories covering approximately 1,200+ pages of specifications

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The analysis covered both Acquirer-side and Issuer-side operations, focusing on inputs and outputs related to clearing and settlement file exchanges.

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Key outcomes

• Mapped complex clearing and settlement ecosystem differences

• Provided separate analysis for acquirer and issuer perspectives

• Identified opportunities for ISO standards adoption

• Delivered actionable consolidation roadmap for settlement operations

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Phase 3: Disputes

In the final phase, our team addressed dispute management functionality, examining:

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• Dispute file and information exchange processes

• Dispute initiation and resolution workflows

• File upload/retrieval sequences and timing

• Data transmission mechanics and protocols

• Oversight, tracking, and compliance governance

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Key outcomes

• Completed the comprehensive gap analysis across all three operational domains

• Provided a unified view of dispute processes across all product specifications

• Benchmarked against industry standards

• Delivered final piece of the consolidation roadmap

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Results

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Overall, our client received a complete roadmap for consolidating its credit product platform specifications. The deliverables offer both the detailed technical foundation for implementation and the strategic business case for executive decision-making.

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