Introducing Shape Technologies: the PPaaS provider
A technology provider to the payments community, Shape's mission is to get payments businesses to market quicker. Launching with its first six modules, the PPaaS provider is designed to power merchant-facing interfaces for any payments business, including acquirers; payment facilitators; payment gateways; independent sales organisations; and many more. In the eternal struggle that is buy vs build / capex vs opex, Shape offers an alternative like no other: true, user-friendly white-labelling made possible in a few simple clicks and at a fraction of the price of a self-build. And with its extensive range of customisation options, with Shape no two platforms need ever look the same. It's white-labelling and then some.
The platform's modular architecture enables its licensees to select any combination of its products, which when operated together provide the infrastructure for an end-to-end service from transaction instigation through to fund settlement. Employed in alternative combinations the Shape platform can operate as a standalone merchant data capture service for ISOs, an orchestration engine for payment facilitators, or anything in-between. The Shape platform also addresses what remains to be the elephant in the room for so many tech-heavy PSPs: manual backend processes. With Shape, automation comes as standard throughout: in merchant onboarding; global AML/KYC/KYB verification; fund orchestration; reporting; and billing.
Shape Technologies' Co-founders have recognised PSPs' trepidation when it comes to using white-label products for fear that a limitation of customisation functionality risks losing control over their branding consistency. That's why the Shape platform is launching as a technology-first purpose-built PPaaS solution, rather than a white-label version of its own PSP product. That approach, coupled with the product's modular architecture, has also enabled the business to steer clear of designing a single suitor solution and instead deliver an adaptable platform that can be put to many uses.
And licensee customisation is not just reserved to UI design; Shape's payments integrations with payment gateways, acquirers, and banks are all managed and controlled in-app by its licensees who can configure payment options, settlement terms, and more, in order to maintain complete control and ensure that licensed entities always remain compliant.
Shape Technologies' Co-founder, Jack Mangnall, said, "We've seen so many payments businesses stall under the burden of heavy technology builds and so lose ground on their competition, and now Shape's solution can put an end to that. Be it for a new-to-market launch or the re-platforming of an existing market player, Shape offers an out-of-the-box PPaaS solution, but with truly in-depth customisation capabilities that replicate the style variances normally only found in in-house builds. I’m excited to see how organisations around the world will put our payments-platform-as-a-service to great use."
Shape enters the market with six modules: Onboarding; Verify; Data; Payments; Analytics; and Billing, each representing a key business process of PSPs. As the business continues to scale, it intends to add further functionality to its offering, creating partnerships with additional third-party providers in order to enhance its library of pre-integrated services available to its licensees.