Making payments a profit centre: what payments leaders are doing differently
Payments is no longer a back-office checkbox. In our recent webinar with the Merchant Risk Council (MRC), we sat down with payments leaders to unpack a simple idea with a big upside: if you treat payments like a growth lever, it can drive revenue, reduce loss, and improve customer experience – all at once.
James Wood (Eris Intelligence) moderated the session, joined by Willem Wellinghoff (Chief Compliance Officer and UK Chair at Ecommpay), Jason Macklin (VP Payments, ex-ESW and Microsoft), and Micheál Egan (Global Head of Payment Operations at Retail InMotion). Here are the standout moments – plus a few practical takeaways you can use straight away.
Payments wins when the C-suite is involved (and informed)
One of the strongest themes was this: payments performance improves fastest when senior leadership treats it as a strategic enabler, not just a cost line.
Micheál’s approach was refreshingly practical – you don’t need to turn your executives into payments experts. You need to translate payments into outcomes they care about.
“I don’t need to understand payments. I just need to know what value you are going to add? When can I have it? How much will it cost? And who is going to deliver this?”
Micheál also called out something many teams miss: meet C-suite leaders one-to-one. It creates shared language – and shared urgency.
“One BIP can significantly matter at volume.”
Jason agreed, adding that payments and fraud prevention can be a genuine competitive advantage – because they directly affect revenue, loyalty and customer satisfaction.
“It’s very important that you’re able to express why payments and fraud prevention are a competitive advantage – not just a back-office function.”
Fraud has changed. The response has to change too
Willem zoomed out to the broader European context: more cross-border growth means more complexity – and more opportunity for fraudsters, especially as they adopt artificial intelligence (AI).
“Fraudsters are not beholden to laws. Merchants and payment service providers are.”
He also highlighted the uncomfortable reality of first-party fraud – and how consumer behaviour can quietly erode profitability if teams don’t measure it properly.
“48% of UK adults are actually quite okay committing first-party fraud.”
The takeaway: fraud strategy can’t be “set and forget”. It needs the same pace of improvement as your checkout experience – and it needs to be explained in commercial terms, not just technical ones.
Data isn’t reporting. It’s the story that earns investment
Everyone kept coming back to data – not as dashboards, but as a way to align teams, prove return on investment (ROI), and make smarter decisions faster.
Willem put it simply:
“Data tells a story… if data is structured in the right way, it’s extraordinarily powerful.”
Micheál shared a hard-earned lesson: growth initiatives (like marketing campaigns) can unintentionally trigger spikes in chargebacks and fraud. If teams don’t connect the dots early, you’re celebrating the wrong “wins”.
“You see the increase… then a month later you see all the chargebacks coming in.”
Jason took it further: payments leaders are often sitting at the centre of the business, because every exec function has a payments-shaped priority.
“You’re in the centre of this universe of C-suite people.”
The metrics that turn payments performance into business value
When the panel got specific, the conversation became very actionable. A few metrics stood out as consistently useful:
Order bounce rate / checkout drop-off (Micheál)
Not just “did the payment work?”, but where shoppers abandon and why – including missing local payment
methods.
“If you don’t have UPI in India… you’re gonna see your order bounce rate is huge.”
Funnel-stage abandonment (Jason)
Break down the full journey, then test changes (messaging, delivery costs, method placement) with A/B
testing.
“Understand the cart abandonment rate… at each stage… then build hypotheses and address them.”
Payment success rate + chargeback rate (Jason)
Still vital – but dangerous if they’re the only two numbers you look at.
“It’s quite easy to get tunnel vision looking at just two metrics…”
Lifecycle-level visibility from providers (Willem)
Knowing what data your providers can give you (and how quickly) changes how fast you can improve.
“We track every single component of the payment lifecycle… we even can track the carbon footprint.”
Quick wins build credibility – and unlock bigger moves
James highlighted a key research insight: quick wins create internal momentum. They prove value early and make future investment conversations much easier.
“Optimising transaction routing… can save 26% of transaction costs.”
The panel shared the kinds of quick wins they’ve seen work in the real world:
“If you are paying for submissions for approvals and you’re not getting the approval… don’t be paying for that.”
Micheál also brought a mindset we love: don’t wait for perfection before you start learning.
“At 80%, you actually have to just launch – and stop trying to perfect.”
Partnership isn’t optional. It’s how you scale improvement
No one on the panel believed “build it all in-house” is realistic for most merchants – especially as payment methods, regulations and fraud patterns evolve.
“It’s very naive to think that you can build everything in house.”
Jason shared a practical test for providers: can you access their expertise, not just their APIs? The best partners bring insight from far larger transaction volumes – and they should actively share what they learn.
“Get commitment… that you have access to that… they have x-fold more transactions than you will as a merchant.”
Micheál pointed to orchestration as a route to real-world benchmarking and experimentation – because you can only run meaningful A/B tests if you have a true “B”.
“How are you meant to test against B if you don’t have a B variant?”
Partnership isn’t optional. It’s how you scale improvement
No one on the panel believed “build it all in-house” is realistic for most merchants – especially as payment methods, regulations and fraud patterns evolve.
“It’s very naive to think that you can build everything in house.”
Jason shared a practical test for providers: can you access their expertise, not just their APIs? The best partners bring insight from far larger transaction volumes – and they should actively share what they learn.
“Get commitment… that you have access to that… they have x-fold more transactions than you will as a merchant.”
Micheál pointed to orchestration as a route to real-world benchmarking and experimentation – because you can only run meaningful A/B tests if you have a true “B”.
“How are you meant to test against B if you don’t have a B variant?”
The ‘small’ change that increased sales
Jason shared a brilliant example from Mexico using Oxxo (over-the-counter cash payments). The team reduced the payment window from 15 days to 5 days after spotting reseller behaviour reserving inventory without paying.
Result: higher conversion from genuine shoppers, reduced unwanted reseller activity, and better inventory availability.
It’s a good reminder that “innovation” isn’t always a new payment method. Sometimes it’s improving how an existing method behaves – based on what the data is telling you.