Mint HouseCase study

Next-Gen Platform, Cloud Migration and Agile Transformation Support Growth for Payments Processor

Payments
man hold his credit card while entering his information into the computer using payment processing

Challenge

A global leader in payments processing for issuing banks wanted to increase agility, streamline delivery and support its growing customer base. With plans involving increased automation and a move of its on-premises infrastructure to the cloud, it sought a tech partner to offer expert support.

Outcome

Our collaboration led to a transformation, enabling several teams to deliver on two-week sprint intervals, down from up to six months. Along with a successful transition to the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, the business also increased efficiencies leading to faster processing times.

A person holding a cell phone.

One of the world’s leading payments processing partners for issuing banks wanted to team up with a technology company to support its rapidly expanding customer base.


The organisation needed to increase the automation level across development cycles, develop a next-generation platform for issuer processing, move its on-premises infrastructure to the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS), introduce more agility into operations and streamline delivery for its increasing number of customers.

Laying foundations for success

We began our partnership by first addressing the client’s most pressing issues. We initially began our work by fine-tuning its existing system and building a test automation and performance testing framework with custom-built user interface (UI) and reporting to improve processes and infrastructure to enable a system-wide upgrade.
 
Overall, we’ve helped enhance the client’s infrastructure, processes and activities related to the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC). These ranged from building more than 2,500 automated tests for authorisations, to extending platform features and scaling existing ones for the sake of keeping what worked well. It also included implementing full continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipelines for most of the platform, accelerating the path to production.
 
These enhancements included preparation for the adoption of a new technology stack for the platform. We’ve built initial proof of concepts (POC) for microservice-based architecture that subsequently turned into new architectural components for the overall platform. Through a combined effort of our teams, these were later expanded into the first fully rewritten set of components which helped keep the software up to date and cut down processing time.
 
Furthermore, we’ve facilitated the on-premises infrastructure move to AWS by implementing an automated cloud infrastructure. Currently, around 300 instances and 130 environments are being used on daily basis, helping to improve productivity.

 

Native client third-party integrating: To add more depth to the platform experience, the client prioritised adding apps that enable: 

  • Enterprise content management: With the assortment of content management systems already under the client’s umbrella of offerings, we instituted enhancements and new features to improve the platform’s functions across the many operating systems it serves. The work included rebranding the user experience and interface, security upgrades and resolving several internal and customer-flagged product issues.     

      

  • Social media syncing and emoji use: We assisted in adding an app that allows the client’s user to connect the platform to a well-known messaging app and use emojis within that integration. We worked with native and web-based engineering team to remove potential obstacles and de-bugged certain areas to make the integration more stable and ready for rollout.
  • Interoperable collaboration: We supported adding a collaborative board app into the client’s platform to allow collaboration without context switching. Work included authentication oversight, native integration into multiple operating systems, adding business/operation metrics and making the functions more accessible.
Colleagues reviewing research data

Agile transformation to spark acceleration

A team of more than 50 was formed to work in an agile manner across ten projects, spanning from redesigning tooling for new products, to introducing an application programming interface (API) aggregator/gateway – all to help the business accelerate their digital plans.

 

To help support growth plans, the client needed a partner who could offer scale. They were reassured we could do this based on our previous experience. 
 
Today, the client relies on us for critical support for important deadlines and unforeseen events, such as managing outages. We’ve also helped the organisation scale on the business continuity plan by setting up dedicated nearshore offices with 24/7 access and providing pre-installed hardware for its team of engineers.

We helped transform the client’s business by introducing agile ways of working, enabling many teams to deliver on two-week sprint intervals instead of up to six months.

Colleagues working together on a laptop

Customer-centred results

The POCs for microservice-based architecture that expanded into the first fully rewritten set of components cut processing time down by roughly 50%. 


The platform’s real-time message performance has increased from 30 transactions per second (TPS) to 90 TPS, and issuer timeouts have been reduced by 93%, with the main database load decreasing by 36%. This has helped the client achieve more than 99.9% availability over six months, reducing the number of P1 incidents – that is, the highest priority incidents or situations severely impacting services – by over 60%. 
 
Automation of platform quality assurance (QA) activity condensed three weeks of manual testing to four hours of automated tests, facilitating increased Visa clearing processing speed by 89%. 
 
Our proactive introduction and implementation of database versioning tools and related processes throughout its business has not only significantly reduced deployment cycles, but also increased the reliability and quality of its teams and the whole platform. 
 
Ultimately, the robust technical and leadership capabilities we helped put in place have facilitated the client’s ability to give its growing customer base better support.

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