We are Cashflow Technologies, Inc., and our corporate website can be found here. We established the openpayments.com site for the purpose of developing better services for our clients, and also our processing partners. In addition, the development world is presented with an opportunity for prize money, and perhaps, entry into a new professional endeavor.
We are what is commonly referred to in the payments industry as an ISO (Independent Sales Organization). We represent a number of processors within the electronic payments field, and some recognize us as their most valuable ISO for the sales and marketing of their products, as well the professional approach we take. We guarantee our services, as well as the products we deliver on behalf of our processing partners to our merchant client base. Some of our processing partners would say that we fly in a direction that is opposite of what a typical ISO organization is. Sell and disappear is far from our belief. We would hope to think that the Open Payments contest, and what will be future contests, speaks loudly to that claim.
Our client base extends into the thousands of merchant clients, both large and small. Some clients are well recognized names, such as Time Warner and American Express. Many clients are software companies who we consult with in payment enabling their software, providing valuable services to their vertical client base, as well as offering our clients an additional source of revenue. So what is an ISO in the electronic payment field doing by offering a development contest? Good question!
So what is an ISO in the electronic payments field doing by offering a development contest? That’s a good question!
Typically, or perhaps more accurately, almost never do ISO’s take part in development projects for a processor. While we are asked quite often to consult on development projects from a business specification position, we do not fancy ourselves as developers. Far from it. Sure, we understand the development process and what takes place, but we know our core competency; Sales, marketing and providing the support to our clients to make certain the solution they are after is achieved.
The Open Payments endeavor was created for a number of reasons. First and foremost to bring forth new developments that our clients and prospective clients might be able to utilize. We also hope the development world has some ideas that we have yet to think of. And thirdly, our relationships with our partner processors are important to us. We believe that there are rewards greater than compensation agreements that are already in place. While we are already in good stead our processing partners, we believe that giving something not having been asked for places us above and beyond others, and only strengthens our position.
Do we have an interest with the current processor for who we are sponsoring the first contest? Absolutely not! We have no stock, futures interest, or provisional stock with the processing company. Our only revenue from the processing company comes in the form of services sold to clients. Period.
And in case you are wondering, the prize money for the current contest is being provided, 100% of it, by us. The processor is not responsible for a single dime of it. What we think we have created is a win-win proposition for not only the processing company who we are sponsoring a contest for, but also for our company, our clients, interested parties, and for the developers who have the creativity and time to put forth an entry. Aside from those reasons, we hope to grow what can be a more open way of connecting the development community to the payments industry, which happens to be a dynamic and ever evolving arena.
Where does Open Payments go from here? First and foremost, Open Payments will be sponsoring at least one development contest per year. It’s our commitment to our processing partners, clients, the development community and industry specific consultants and professionals we hope to engage.
We do have other ideas as to what else might be accomplished from the Open Payments portal, and as time permits and ideas are polished we will share them with our membership base.
If you want to keep yourself fully informed of what’s happening at Open Payments, you should take the time to register in order to receive updates. The registration section has a place for most everyone that this site has relevance to.
