3070: BR-DGE Payment Orchestration: From Legacy Systems to Modern Fintech

[00:00:04] How can business navigate the complexities of modern payment systems while also ensuring seamless, secure transactions?

[00:00:14] Well, today on Tech Talks Daily, I'm joined by Tom Voden, VP of Commercial at a company called Bridge.

[00:00:22] And together we're going to explore a solution that's making waves in the payment space, Bridge's white label payment orchestration platform.

[00:00:30] Founded in 2018, Bridge has quickly grown into a key player in the industry, helping enterprise merchants and financial institutions manage their payment connectivity and streamline their operations.

[00:00:44] So today, Tom's going to walk us through how Bridge addresses the fragmentation in today's payment landscape

[00:00:51] and improves transaction success rates through dynamic routing and tokenization.

[00:00:59] And yet we're also going to explore how Bridge bridges the gap between legacy systems, see what I did there?

[00:01:06] And modern fintech solutions.

[00:01:08] Ultimately allowing businesses to stay competitive without needing to completely overhaul their infrastructure, which I would imagine would be music to the ears of IT teams out there.

[00:01:20] And with the company expanding globally and exploring data-driven innovations, how will this platform continue to evolve?

[00:01:28] And what does the future of payment orchestration look like?

[00:01:32] Well, let's dive into some of those possibilities today.

[00:01:36] So a massive warm welcome to the show, Tom.

[00:01:39] Can you tell everyone listening a little about who you are and what you do?

[00:01:44] It's great to be here.

[00:01:45] So my name is Tom Voden.

[00:01:47] I'm the VP of commercial at Bridge.

[00:01:49] So my role is managing all of Bridge's kind of sales and partnerships go to market efforts.

[00:01:55] Well, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

[00:01:57] And a question I've got to ask, I love finding out a little bit more about the origin story behind my guests and their company.

[00:02:04] What inspired Bridge to develop this white label payment orchestration solution?

[00:02:09] And how does it stand out in today's competitive payment technology landscape?

[00:02:13] I've got a feeling there's a story there, right?

[00:02:15] There's always a story.

[00:02:16] There is definitely a story.

[00:02:18] So our company was founded back in 2018 by a guy called Brian Coben.

[00:02:23] And he worked for Stagecoach Group, the kind of global travel and transit operation.

[00:02:30] And really what he was seeing, working in their kind of technology and then payments division, was ultimately the problem that Bridge is aiming to and hopefully succeeding in solving, which is really the kind of disintermediation of payments.

[00:02:44] A lot of which is forced upon both merchants and banking partners.

[00:02:48] Now we utilize our white label proposition.

[00:02:51] So what I mean by that is if you're a large enterprise level merchant and you're maybe operating across multiple markets, you're having to now manage a whole kind of range of different payment providers, different payment methods.

[00:03:05] Think of all the different wallets that you see when you go to a checkout.

[00:03:07] You're having to manage fraud in that flow.

[00:03:09] You're having to really think about customer experience increasingly because customers' expectations are kind of ever evolving.

[00:03:15] And so he stepped out of Stagecoach and founded Bridge.

[00:03:20] He's based in Scotland and the company is based in Edinburgh.

[00:03:24] But really, we're now operating kind of across the UK, Europe and now into APAC, with our eyes set on the US in the next year or two as well.

[00:03:34] And really, you know, what we're aiming to do is offer both enterprise merchants and also large financial institutions access to a kind of independent software layer that manages all of the connectivity into those downstream.

[00:03:48] And payment providers that I mentioned, and not only offers connectivity into them, but then allows you to start to do some really cool stuff to basically enhance your customer's payment journey and success rates.

[00:03:58] We're about 100 people today.

[00:04:01] And the company was founded in 2018.

[00:04:04] Most of that growth in terms of people and our customer base has been within the last kind of 18 to 24 months.

[00:04:10] And I myself joined three years ago when we were roughly 25 people.

[00:04:14] So that growth over that period has been fantastic.

[00:04:17] And just to bring this to life for people that are listening all around the world, especially if they're from a large enterprise and nodding their head in agreement with some of those challenges.

[00:04:28] That you raise there with all those different payment providers and also the expectation from the consumer as well.

[00:04:35] It's not just about can I pay with my card?

[00:04:38] It's Google Pay, Apple Pay and everything in between as well.

[00:04:41] So how does your modular approach to payment orchestration?

[00:04:45] How does that benefit acquirers, gateways and platforms in terms of things like customization and scalability?

[00:04:52] Because you said there's quite a few other tools that you've got there as well.

[00:04:56] Definitely. Yeah. So our product kind of breaks down into modules.

[00:04:59] But I think, you know, thinking about the story of Bridge where we started, we thought, you know, we need a out of the box kind of one size fits all platform that does everything for everybody.

[00:05:06] But actually, what we've observed over the last few years is that, you know, if you're a large bank, for example, and you're offering acceptance of payments to your merchant customers, and they might be merchants who are small to medium business or they may be really large enterprise.

[00:05:21] Either way, they've got a whole host of demands that they are demanding on you because ultimately, you know, as we said, the end consumers, you and I in our day to day are expecting, you know, payments to be smooth, payments to be secure, but the website to look nice for all the different payment options that are on there to meet the way that we want to pay when we want to pay it.

[00:05:40] And ultimately, that all comes back then to the payment provider. Now, a lot of these payment providers are big banks, and a lot of them are built on very legacy technology.

[00:05:50] So what they're trying to do is, you know, keep up with regulation, keep up with things that, you know, the schemes Visa and MasterCard are pushing on them and saying you must do for security and for really good reason.

[00:06:00] But actually, then doesn't necessarily leave them the bandwidth, the resource to be able to go and do that new, shiny, fun, exciting stuff that ultimately their customers really want and ultimately the consumers want, which is the most important thing in this.

[00:06:13] So what Bridge has developed is kind of, yeah, a number of modules that solve different points of that journey.

[00:06:19] So for example, we have a product called Bridge Connect, which is basically aggregation.

[00:06:24] It's aggregation of different payment providers around the world, different payment methods, different fraud tools, different pieces of technology that you might want to pull into that flow.

[00:06:32] And you ultimately can just dip into that if you want.

[00:06:35] If you just want connectivity, you can dip into that.

[00:06:38] But if you then want to take it a step further and say, okay, I want to start really encrypting that card payment flow.

[00:06:43] I want to start doing what's called tokenization, which is taking that card number that you and I have in your wallet and actually swapping it out for a token, which is, you know, kind of a randomly generated 16 digits.

[00:06:54] So that if someone intercepts that card flow, actually all they'll have is a useless 16-digit number, which can't then be used elsewhere.

[00:07:02] So it's taking those different modules, you know, taking connect, taking tokenization, taking routing capability and plugging them in to plug those gaps that you as a large TEDxE legacy technology provider with competing demands is trying to kind of achieve.

[00:07:17] So it's really taking it in and finding those specific gaps that you may have.

[00:07:21] Whenever we talk about payments, especially digital payments and card payments, I also automatically get flashbacks from that awful PCI song in my IT days.

[00:07:31] So for the payment providers, how does Bridge help manage some of those complexities of compliance?

[00:07:38] And yes, like PCI DSS and the forthcoming, I think it's PSD3, while still delivering innovative services at the same time, I would imagine it's quite a tricky balance.

[00:07:50] It is a tricky balance.

[00:07:51] I think, you know, orchestration is almost taking a lot of the technology pain away.

[00:07:57] So, you know, we're not involved, for example, in contractual commitments that payment providers have with their end customers or that the customers have with their payment providers.

[00:08:05] We're just plugging that technology gap in the middle.

[00:08:08] So what we can do is we can pull in the best, you know, products and bits of software from the market that helps solve some of those compliance issues that exist, that help meet those regulatory and scheme demands.

[00:08:19] For example, PSD3 and what might be within that.

[00:08:22] We can start to pull those bits in and do all the technology legwork for both sides of the coin, for the providers and the merchants.

[00:08:29] But not only that, we can then start to tie them into the transaction flow in a way that kind of works in the best way for the merchant in terms of, you know, authorization rate for cost, for the payment provider, for exactly those same reasons, and ultimately for the consumer so that they get the least kind of step ups possible in the flow, for example, whilst having the most secure payment experience.

[00:08:51] And just for people outside the industry, what kind of challenges are payment providers typically facing right now?

[00:08:58] Especially, I mean, you mentioned legacy tech stacks a moment ago.

[00:09:02] So around that, and how does your solution address some of those issues around those problems?

[00:09:08] Yeah, legacy tech stacks is a big problem.

[00:09:10] You know, if you think about it, a lot of much will have a banking partner that they use from an issuing banking perspective.

[00:09:17] So they use for their day-to-day business banking.

[00:09:19] And a lot of times they then look to them to provide the acceptance side, to be able to receive payments in, you know, in the shop, on the website.

[00:09:27] However, a lot of those, as I say, are built on very legacy technology.

[00:09:32] So what we've seen is an over-reliance on that almost.

[00:09:36] And then those banks struggling to iterate their technology to keep up with demand.

[00:09:40] But the other thing that you have is you have new entrants into the market.

[00:09:43] So you have the kind of new modern fintech acquiring partners, gateway banks, who are really coming in and launching, you know, out-of-the-box, full 360 solutions.

[00:09:54] They're not only sold payments, but they also solve a whole host of other problems that merchants might have.

[00:09:59] And so if you're one of those big legacy issuers who is also doing acquiring, you've got the problem of your legacy tech and you've got the problem of those new entrants providing pressure.

[00:10:08] So that's really where we think Bridge can help.

[00:10:10] Coming in and being a kind of white-label platform that can take a lot of that technology pain away, can pull in the best bits of industry and glue it into your existing legacy tech stack.

[00:10:20] And that's kind of where we see we can add value.

[00:10:23] And doing that in a way which doesn't disrupt your relationship with your customers looks like your own technology and is also future-proofing you.

[00:10:29] So as new regulation, as new payment methods are pushed into the market, we'll continue to iterate that technology so that you're always at the forefront.

[00:10:39] I was recently talking with someone from a famous airline and they were talking about the challenge of accepting payments for things like duty-free and food and drink, etc.

[00:10:50] at 35,000 feet, but there's no way of authorising those payments.

[00:10:54] And some customers seem to have cottoned on to this and they were bringing on false cards or cards that were going to be declined.

[00:11:01] But it was a risk that the airline was taking and ended up being quite costly for them.

[00:11:06] So how does the ability to dynamically route transactions through multiple acquirers, how is this improving authorisation rates and optimised payment processing for providers?

[00:11:19] Because is it a big problem?

[00:11:21] And one, as consumers, we don't automatically think about it.

[00:11:25] I think the way that you led into that with kind of the almost fraud challenge that they have and then led into authorisation rate is the right way to think about it.

[00:11:34] Because there is an argument that you can just continually drive authorisation rate.

[00:11:39] And there's a number of ways to do that.

[00:11:40] And routing is one of them.

[00:11:42] You know, tokenisation that I mentioned is another one.

[00:11:44] However, you might run a risk with that, that if you don't do it in the right way, what you actually do is increase things like fraud.

[00:11:52] So I think, you know, routing is a really important kind of function that payment providers and merchants should be thinking about today.

[00:12:01] How do I take the transaction, look at it and say, OK, it's going to succeed the most if it goes to this end point?

[00:12:09] You know, and that could be because it's a certain card type, because it's from a certain country.

[00:12:14] Whatever it may be, you know, we have a whole host of data that shows authorisation rates can be very clearly uplifted by sending X to Y.

[00:12:23] The thing that you need to remember within that is how do you do that in a way where you're keeping an eye on the kind of periphery, you're keeping an eye on fraud rates, you're keeping an eye on conversion, keeping an eye on cost.

[00:12:32] All of these things, you know, you need to take into the kind of equation when you're thinking about routing.

[00:12:38] And ultimately, that's where orchestration comes in, because it gives you that one dashboard, that one view of everything.

[00:12:43] So you say, OK, I'm doing this over here, but it's resulting in this over here.

[00:12:48] And before you came on the podcast today, I was doing a little research and I was reading how Bridges Vault solution also provides PCI compliant tokenisation.

[00:12:57] Can you just expand on that for people that have not heard about it and also some of the advantages that it offers in avoiding things like supplier lock-in, which can be a problem?

[00:13:08] Yeah, so tokenisation as a concept is basically the replacement of the card number with a token.

[00:13:14] Now, that can happen in many ways.

[00:13:16] That can happen at kind of a payment provider level.

[00:13:18] So if I'm a payment provider, I can just swap it for a token and then I'll just pass the card number downstream, you know, to the scheme, to the issuing bank ultimately.

[00:13:27] But actually, what the schemes have done, these are MasterCard, Amex and others, is develop what's called network token, which is not only masking that kind of 16-digit card number for the first part of the journey.

[00:13:38] It's masking it all the way from the consumer through to the scheme themselves.

[00:13:43] So when it basically hits your bank.

[00:13:44] So what we've done at Bridge is we've taken those products from all the different card schemes.

[00:13:51] We've also taken the kind of tokenisation that the different payment providers have and aggregated them into one product, where then you can decide what token you want to use when to kind of realise the best result for you.

[00:14:05] Another key thing here is that, back to my point around legacy technology, a lot of the legacy providers haven't yet built in what's called network tokenisation, which is that kind of scheme Visa MasterCard tokenisation piece.

[00:14:15] So a lot of merchants aren't able to use network token, even when it might yield the best results for them, and often it does.

[00:14:23] So by plugging in Bridge, what you can do is you can take the Vault product and we'll just be the one who swaps that card number out for the token.

[00:14:31] And therefore, even if your existing provider doesn't offer it, we'll be doing that.

[00:14:35] The kind of hard yards for you there will be calling the scheme, getting a token back,

[00:14:38] and making sure that you're using the right token at the right time for the right transaction.

[00:14:44] And I'm curious, with this growing demand for modular payment choices and value-added services,

[00:14:49] how are you helping payment providers manage so many multiple relationships and integrations all through a single connection?

[00:14:57] Because I think that's one of the things that we should talk about more, because it sounds incredibly easy, but there's a lot going on there, right?

[00:15:06] I don't think in reality anything in payments is easy, or certainly as easy as it looks.

[00:15:12] I think one of the things we've seen is payment providers, especially legacy ones trying to modernize,

[00:15:18] have relied on a strategy of white-labeling individual components.

[00:15:23] So they'll white-label a gateway, they'll sign a deal with another potentially legacy gateway often,

[00:15:28] to white-label it and have that as their new platform.

[00:15:30] But what you do then is you might have a new shiny product that lasts for a few years that you offer your kind of front book,

[00:15:37] your new merchant customers.

[00:15:38] But actually, you've got all of these existing merchant customers who are on legacy offerings,

[00:15:43] and there might be multiple legacy offerings because you've done this a number of times.

[00:15:46] So what you then do is create this kind of real disparity between your merchant customer experience,

[00:15:52] where you've got some of your kind of VIP, your most important merchant customers,

[00:15:55] sitting on one of your really legacy pieces of technology.

[00:15:58] And you've got a new merchant having a great time on a new piece of technology,

[00:16:02] but will also be facing that same challenge in a few years when that piece of technology gets out of date.

[00:16:07] So the idea of orchestration as the one connection point is that basically it can sit as a single layer across all of that.

[00:16:14] It can pull together the legacy, it can pull together the new,

[00:16:17] it can pull together third-party technology from across the market,

[00:16:20] and basically plug it in at different points that kind of work in the right way for you.

[00:16:25] And that might be migrating some of those customers from old to new.

[00:16:29] It might be consolidation.

[00:16:31] It might actually be maintaining it,

[00:16:33] but just plugging specific gaps that some of those customers have on whatever platform they're already on.

[00:16:37] Ultimately, that's the nice thing about it is its flexibility.

[00:16:41] And you've now got one platform, one connection that offers all of that.

[00:16:45] And going forwards, any of your new customers will always plug into the orchestration layer,

[00:16:48] because that's the bit that's going to be future-proofed.

[00:16:51] Because the whole point of orchestration is it continues to pull in bits of the market,

[00:16:56] new or old, and then build them into a flow that, as I say,

[00:16:58] kind of works in the best way for the end customer.

[00:17:02] And as we talk today, we are only a couple of months away from life in 2025.

[00:17:07] So if we look ahead for a moment, how do you see this white label solution evolving?

[00:17:13] And any other impacts you're anticipating that it will have on the global payment orchestration market?

[00:17:20] You said at the beginning of our conversation, a lot of expansion plans around the world, etc.

[00:17:24] So how do you see this evolving?

[00:17:27] I think we see it.

[00:17:28] We see it evolving in a few ways.

[00:17:29] I mean, orchestration as a concept, as a thing in the market, is still fairly new.

[00:17:35] And you look at it compared to other streams of fintech business that have been around for a while.

[00:17:39] So there's a lot of markets that go after still.

[00:17:42] And we only launched our white label proposition this year.

[00:17:44] And it sits alongside our kind of direct to merchant product offering as well.

[00:17:50] I think ultimately, we see this problem just getting greater and greater.

[00:17:57] So one of the markets that I always like to talk about is Australia,

[00:18:01] where you've had a number of the banks over there.

[00:18:03] And there's only a few banks, really big banks there.

[00:18:06] Where you've seen a number of them now starting to utilize white label orchestration.

[00:18:10] Competitors are bridge.

[00:18:12] But it's fantastic to see because it shows that in a market,

[00:18:16] you can have that kind of halo effect where one of them does it.

[00:18:19] And the others will start to look and say, this is great.

[00:18:21] This does solve the problems we have.

[00:18:23] And we've seen it work with someone else.

[00:18:24] Now let's try it ourselves.

[00:18:26] So I think we expect a decent, steady growth in it.

[00:18:29] I think there's other verticals that the white label kind of offering can serve,

[00:18:34] such as platforms.

[00:18:35] So you think about like e-commerce platforms,

[00:18:38] having to manage all the different payment providers that the customer,

[00:18:41] the kind of merchants that sits on them have.

[00:18:43] This is a way to consolidate that down and modernize it and start to offer new functionality,

[00:18:47] such as routing and tokenization.

[00:18:49] And I think for bridge itself, we're at a point of really fast growth.

[00:18:55] We are looking at things like market expansion,

[00:18:57] but we're also looking within now to say, okay,

[00:18:59] what are we now getting now that we have a large customer base?

[00:19:02] One of the key things there is data.

[00:19:05] So I mentioned earlier about seeing everything in the kind of transaction flow.

[00:19:09] For our customers, we can see everything all the way from kind of initiation of transaction

[00:19:13] through to the end result and more.

[00:19:16] And so actually what we're getting is tons of data points

[00:19:19] that we can then actually start to offer to our customers in the right way.

[00:19:24] Because the thing with data is always make sure you're using it in the right compliant way.

[00:19:27] But there's so much value in that data that can enable them to think about,

[00:19:31] okay, what's next?

[00:19:32] What should I be fine tuning in my payment stack?

[00:19:35] How do I benchmark in this market against my capacitors?

[00:19:38] All these kind of things are things that we are bridge starting to see now.

[00:19:41] We've got really significant data.

[00:19:42] So for us, it's about how we take that and kind of offer it out

[00:19:45] and level up our data offering to the kind of the next stage.

[00:19:50] Well, I wish you the best of luck next year and beyond on your journey.

[00:19:54] I know you're an incredibly busy guy talking to me in Edinburgh today.

[00:19:58] You live in Dublin.

[00:19:59] So I suspect that you do a fair bit of reading on your travels.

[00:20:03] And I always ask my guests to leave a book that they would recommend to our Amazon wishlist.

[00:20:08] And listeners can dip in there and see what the guests have been reading.

[00:20:13] So anything you'd recommend that we can add to that list and why?

[00:20:16] Yeah, it may be kind of for the wrong reasons.

[00:20:19] But it's a book called Money Men by Dan McCrump, who is a journalist.

[00:20:23] And you may have had this before, but it's about the Wirecard scandal

[00:20:27] and everything that happened in and around that.

[00:20:28] But not only that, I went to a talk with him in London,

[00:20:31] which is why I found it so interesting.

[00:20:34] And the story of some of the stuff, I'd probably be careful with what I say,

[00:20:37] but some of the stuff that went on in and around,

[00:20:39] in his investigation afterwards to him personally as well.

[00:20:44] And working and having myself worked at one of the large schemes before I joined Bridge,

[00:20:49] I kind of saw it from the other side as well.

[00:20:50] You know, there was huge impact on the market.

[00:20:53] And I think it really shook the fintech space a little bit

[00:20:56] because they seemed like this kind of beacon of fintech success.

[00:21:00] But Dan's take on it, the kind of story around it,

[00:21:03] from a personal level and professional level, I found super interesting.

[00:21:06] So I'd really recommend that because it's the perfect kind of balance

[00:21:09] between fintech insights with a little bit of crime and exciting stuff in there.

[00:21:15] Although, yeah, got to be careful because it was real life,

[00:21:17] but it is a really interesting story.

[00:21:19] Oh, you've got me intrigued now.

[00:21:21] I will not only add that to my Amazon wishlist,

[00:21:23] I will also check that out myself.

[00:21:26] And obviously for anybody listening wanting to learn more about Bridge,

[00:21:30] connect with you or your team, ask a few questions,

[00:21:32] where would you like to point everyone listening?

[00:21:35] Yeah, so you can head to our website, which is bridge,

[00:21:39] which is br-dge.to.

[00:21:42] You can contact us through the website.

[00:21:44] You can also just drop me a note on LinkedIn.

[00:21:45] So my name is Tom Voden.

[00:21:47] So just search Tom Voden on there and you'll see me

[00:21:49] and feel free to drop me a message.

[00:21:52] Well, I love chatting with you.

[00:21:53] I, for one, have learned so much.

[00:21:55] It's one of those areas that we all take for granted.

[00:21:57] And I love as an entirely independent technology provider,

[00:22:01] Bridge is almost redefining the ecosystem

[00:22:03] and delivering value through the entire payments chain.

[00:22:06] I'll be following your journey very closely,

[00:22:08] but more than anything, just thank you for sharing your story today.

[00:22:11] Thank you, Neil.

[00:22:12] Big thank you to Tom for sharing his insights today

[00:22:16] and addressing the challenges of legacy systems

[00:22:19] to offering businesses cutting-edge tools

[00:22:21] to improve payment processes.

[00:22:24] And Bridger's approach to payment orchestration

[00:22:26] seems to be helping pave the way

[00:22:28] to a more efficient, secure future in the payments industry.

[00:22:32] And I love Tom's explanation of how tokenisation

[00:22:35] and dynamic routing

[00:22:37] ultimately enhance both security and authorisation rates.

[00:22:42] Certainly given me a glimpse into the future of payments

[00:22:44] and hopefully a few takeaways for you too.

[00:22:47] But what are your thoughts on this

[00:22:49] shift towards payment orchestration platforms?

[00:22:53] Will they become the new standard for businesses

[00:22:55] looking to optimise their payment strategies?

[00:22:58] I'd love to hear your views as always.

[00:23:00] You know how to find me.

[00:23:02] Techblogrider at Outlook.com.

[00:23:03] Please connect with me on LinkedIn at Neil C. Hughes.

[00:23:06] But until next time, let's keep exploring

[00:23:09] how technology is reshaping the way

[00:23:11] we manage transactions across the globe.

[00:23:14] Love to hear.

[00:23:15] And remember, I invite you to join me again tomorrow

[00:23:17] with another guest.

[00:23:18] Speak with you then.

[00:23:19] Thank you.

[00:23:22] Thank you.

[00:23:23] Thank you.