Passport is a vertical SaaS platform that helps cities manage parking and mobility infrastructure. A Finix customer since 2019, Passport has seen consistent growth of its client base in the last two years, in spite of pandemic restrictions that kept people at home.

Self-described as “the only end-to-end, digital platform for managing mobile pay parking, parking enforcement, digital permitting and mobility,” Passport is helping to create more livable, equitable communities, and Finix is proud to help them in this mission.

In 2018 the CTO at Passport came to the conclusion that the payments infrastructure they had in place was weighing them down. At the time, they were routing authorizations and settlements through third party gateways and processors that had been brought over to them by their customers. This resulted in Passport losing visibility in the back half of the transaction lifecycle, which created a multitude of issues for clients trying to reconcile their funding with the revenue that was reported out to them.

These integrations brought over by clients were not owned or controlled by Passport, which caused undesirable customer experiences. For example, if a customer noticed discrepancies in their settlements, customer support reps couldn’t give them an answer in a timely manner. They would have to go back to the payment gateway provider, often waiting several days to receive an answer.

In 2018 Passport became tired of trying to fit themselves into the one-size-fits-all payments processors and put together a team to go hunting for a better solution. They didn’t want to distract their engineering teams from their core product and thought that integrating payments using an enablement partner was the best way to provide a smoother user experience for both merchants and end consumers.

After some consideration of different payments solutions, Passport chose to become a PayFac with the guidance and technology provided by Finix. This gave them the kind of control over the payments experience that they and their customers really needed.

Passport chose to work with Finix for a variety of reasons. The payments expertise that Finix brought to the table was a big win; they were looking for a team that could guide them along the way. Finix’s connection to and certification with Worldpay was also enticing, as Passport wanted to route their payments through them as a processor without building out the entire integration themselves. Passport also chose to work with Finix because of the speed at which they could be up and running, while still maintaining control over the payments experience.

The Finix dashboard, where Passport could quickly and easily onboard merchants, was also a selling point. With the easy to use dashboard, the operational team at Passport could dive right in without needing to distract engineers from the core product.

By partnering with Finix, Passport payments has become a more consolidated system, without using internal engineering resources. They are able to provide clients with a fully automated reconciliation process that syncs their operational management reporting to their financial reporting. Merchants now have full visibility to the status of payouts through Finix’s settlement reporting.

Because Passport didn’t have to invest resources into settlement visibility, they could invest in more robust reporting for customers, and start building a roadmap for alternative payment options and partnership opportunities.

By focusing on where they could build the most value for their customers, instead of stressing about payments technology, Passport was able to provide a smoother customer experience. These changes have also allowed Passport to uncover new cost savings opportunities for clients in an industry that has faced significant revenue challenges the past couple of years.

As a platform that has been through the experience of integrating payments, they believe it’s never too early to start testing the waters of embedded payments. They also recommend talking to customers to find out what it is they want to see in a payments system, so that you’re always prioritizing the customer experience. Last, but not least, they recommend finding a good partner in the payments space, so that you can benefit from payments industry expertise.