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March 11, 2024 • Issue 24:03:01

Payments orchestration

through the maestro's lens

By Dale S. Laszig A sign of orchestration done poorly is if either the merchant
or the consumer experiences friction." Hampton noted that
rchestration had been on trend for at least a payments are complex, and payments infrastructure pro-
decade in the tech sector when IBM unveiled viders frequently create generic products that address many
watsonx Orchestrate. In a May 9, 2023, blog use cases instead of creating solutions that deliver unique
O post, "The AI Assistant for everyone: watsonx experiences. By contrast, she added, providers could enrich
Orchestrate combines generative AI and automation to the customer experience, she said, by choosing technology
boost productivity," IBM co-authors Steven Brasil and partners that offer flexibility, modularity and choice.
Parul Mishra envisioned the AI platform conducting a
workplace symphony. "What if employees had the ability One-to-many integrations
to effortlessly delegate time-consuming tasks, access infor- Ruston Miles, founder and CEO of Payfactory, agreed that
mation seamlessly through simple inquiries, and tackle partners, especially those with orchestration skills, are key
complex projects within a single, streamlined application?" to successful payments integrations. "An orchestration pro-
they wrote. "What if customers had access to an intelligent, vider allows the software company to do a one-to-many
friendly virtual agent to provide answers and enable self- integration—and considering that there are over 400 pay-
service experiences around the clock?" ment gateways, hundreds of processors and dozens of in-
dependent token providers, this is a huge benefit in terms
The watsonx Orchestrate platform can manage multiple of time and money," he said. "It also reduces risk from an
tasks simultaneously, from "creating a job description or architectural perspective and avoids lock-in to one vendor."
pulling a report in Salesforce to sourcing candidates and
generating sales offers, all driven by intuitive natural lan-
guage," the authors noted.

Payments orchestration Contributed articles inside by:

Kate Hampton, chief strategy officer for NMI, considered Nick Cuuci................................................................................................28
orchestration's role in the payments industry, where har-
monized technologies are vital to the merchant and cus- Adam Atlas ..............................................................................................30
tomer experience. "The fact is that with more merchant Chad Otar ................................................................................................32
accounts being enabled through software, orchestration
is becoming the norm," she said. "A sign of orchestration Elie Y. Katz ...............................................................................................33
done right is if it's undetectable to both the merchant and Dean Nolan .............................................................................................34
the consumer.
Allen Kopelman .....................................................................................35

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