Aeropay: Challenging Times Call for ‘Responsible Creativity’ in Payments

PYMNTS asked business leaders for their take on how to plan for the rest of 2023, and what they are telling their teams to focus on. Andrew Gleiser, chief revenue officer at Aeropay, says flexibility and creativity are needed in a challenging economy.

We are operating in a market with significant ambiguity and fear. From rising inflation rates and geopolitical instability to former technology and payment stalwarts such as Google and Stripe laying off tens of thousands, the established “usual” of nearly two decades has settled into a new “unusual” state of affairs. However, as history has shown us time and again, it’s periods like this that bring out the best building as flexibility and creativity rise to bring stability to the unknown.

At Aeropay, we have seen these changes in the payments space firsthand. With many incumbent companies’ business models becoming financially challenged in this economy, merchants are looking for flexibility from the platforms that they choose to partner with. The root of this is based on rational thought derived from the fear of instability; if one payment method goes down, a high-growth merchant would want to immediately fall back on another provider lest they lose out on sales. Further, the past several years have shown that customer conversion is directly tied to offering convenience in the form of multiple payment methods; in short, customers want to pay how they want, when they want. Consequently, the appetite for signing multiyear, 100% payment exclusivity contracts in exchange for discounts is significantly tempered. Because Aeropay has taken an open approach by offering a full-fledged API, flexible implementation options, and a willingness to work with others in the space on behalf of merchants, we have seen a significant lift in interest that has surpassed our initial expectations.

I would be remiss not to refer to the desire for not only flexibility, but also what I like to call “responsible” creativity in meeting our customers where they are. For example, in the cannabis and gaming space, the frequent rise and fall of various payment methods has kindled considerable skepticism as it pertains to picking a payment partner. For those former processing businesses, creativity meant playing in a gray area with a high probability of unsustainability to meet the needs of customers; in many cases, they operated this way with good intentions. We see creativity as taking the established rule set that exists and finding ways to operate faster within that compliant ecosystem. We have often been questioned on our presumed rigidity: when others are doing the latest payment scheme, why are we sticking to our core and trying to make the best ACH payment process the industry has ever seen? Today, we are hearing different feedback, that our steadfast focus on compliance is not only welcomed but encouraged. In fact, I would go as far as to say that our approach has become a competitive advantage in uncertain times. Indeed, during a time of fear and uncertainty, building your business around trust and speed is all that matters.