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Business area digitalisation analysis

Digitalisation of payment and financial technology companies

How to grow transaction scale, product velocity and partner ecosystem whilst managing fraud, compliance and technological resilience

Digital maturity

Typical digital maturity

Shows the level of technological and process digitalisation at which companies in the sector or business area typically operate today.

A typical market situation is assessed, not the most advanced companies.

The assessment consists of five equally weighted dimensions:

Core system usage
Whether ERP, CRM, WMS, MES, customer portals or other operationally important systems are widespread in companies.
Process digitalisation
How many core processes run in systems and how many are still managed manually.
Systems integration
Whether core systems exchange data between themselves or whether employees transfer information manually.
Data quality and readiness
Whether core data is structured, up-to-date, consistent and suitable for automation and analytics.
Advanced data use
Whether real-time analytics, forecasting, automated alerts, optimisation models or AI are used.

The final score is the average of the five dimensions.

1–5 scale

  • 1 very low maturity
  • 2 low maturity
  • 3 medium maturity
  • 4 high maturity
  • 5 very high maturity

A low maturity score does not necessarily indicate low potential. On the contrary, low maturity and a high level of manual work may indicate significant untapped digitalisation value.

high
Skaitmenizacijos potencialas

Digitalisation potential

Shows how much significant business value a typical sector or business area company can create by systematically digitalising core processes.

The rating is calculated on a 100-point scale across five dimensions:

Process frequency and scale 20 %
An assessment of how frequently the digitalised processes recur and what proportion of operations they represent.
Manual work intensity 20 %
An assessment of the extent to which processes depend on email, telephone, Excel, paper documents and repeated data entry.
Impact on revenue and costs 25 %
An assessment of the potential effect on sales, margin, customer retention, administrative costs, errors, downtime or inventory.
Growth and scale potential 20 %
An assessment of whether digitalisation would enable operational capacity to be increased without expanding headcount and costs at the same rate.
Impact on decisions and risk 15 %
An assessment of the potential effect on data reliability, decision-making speed, customer experience, and the reduction of errors and operational risk.

The final score is calculated according to the assessments and weights of all dimensions.

100-point scale

  • 0–20 very low potential
  • 21–40 low potential
  • 41–60 moderate potential
  • 61–80 high potential
  • 81–100 very high potential

A high score does not mean the solution will be easy to implement. It indicates the size of the potential value, not the implementation complexity.

92/100
Biggest challenge
Payment statuses do not align across systems
Biggest opportunity
Real-time payments, partners and risk platform

A very high-potential and maximum technological criticality business area, where scale depends on unified states, real-time risk and reliable settlement.

Operating model of payments and financial technology companies

These companies build software financial services connecting end users, merchants, banks, payment networks, partner platforms, risk control and financial settlement.

Product operates in real time

Decisions on authentication, risk, routing and state must be made within very short timeframes.

High number of integrations

The platform depends on bank, network, identity, cloud and numerous partner interfaces.

Financial state must reconcile

Customer, partner, bank, network and accounting data must be verified before final settlement.

Resilience is a product attribute

Service availability, recovery, supplier risk and incident management directly affect customer revenue.

Market and technology context

The business area is being transformed by instant payments, open banking APIs, real-time fraud analysis, embedded financial services, automated reconciliation and operational resilience requirements.

  • Event-driven architectureA unified chain of transaction events and states enables more reliable management of retries, errors, refunds and settlement.
  • Partner developer experienceClear documentation, testing environment, certification and performance monitoring directly affect integration speed.
  • Real-time fraud controlIdentity, device, behavioural and transaction signals are evaluated together, balancing security and legitimate payment success.
  • Operational resilienceVisibility of critical services, providers, incidents and recovery scenarios becomes a mandatory part of product management.

Typical operating process

01

Client or partner onboarding

The operating model, identity, risk, contract and technical readiness are assessed.

02

Payment initiation

A request is received, parameters are verified, the customer is checked and permitted payment methods are authorised.

03

Authentication and risk assessment

Identity, device, behaviour and transaction signals are assessed and the necessary checks are selected.

04

Routing selection and execution

The payment is transferred to the appropriate bank or network, and statuses are updated for all participants.

05

Settlement and financial reconciliation

Transaction, fee, refund, partner and accounting data are reconciled.

06

Disputes, exceptions and continuity

Failed payments, refunds, disputes, fraud cases, incidents and recovery scenarios are managed.

Business area digital maturity model

0

Transactions are executed, but exceptions and reconciliation are managed manually

Core payment flow is automated, but partner onboarding, financial exceptions, disputes, incidents and supplier dependencies are managed using separate tools.

1

Digital product with fragmented exceptions

Payments are executed automatically, but customer onboarding, reconciliation, disputes and incidents are managed using separate tools.

2

Stable payment platform with manual operational work

Core transaction chain is reliable, but partner integrations, financial exceptions and risk investigations require significant specialist effort.

3

Integrated status, risk and settlement

Payment, fraud, partner and financial statuses are unified, and exceptions have clear cases, deadlines and accountability.

4

Real-time data-driven platform Typical current situation

Routing, authentication, risk, capacity and incidents are managed based on shared transaction and technical signals.

5

Adaptive and resilient financial services infrastructure Siektina

The platform automatically optimises routing and controls within defined boundaries, whilst model, supplier and performance risk is continuously assessed.

Key finding

In payments and financial technology companies, technology is not a supporting function – it is the product itself, so the quality of processes, states and resilience directly determines business results.

The strategic direction is an event-driven payment platform, but it is worth starting with one clear transaction chain, financial reconciliation or operational visibility scenario.

AI can significantly improve fraud control and exception management, but automated actions must be strictly limited, audited and evaluated against actual losses and rejection of legitimate transactions.

Related digitalisation topics

Real-time payment management platformAutomated financial reconciliationPartner developer portalPayment fraud prevention
Next step

Assessing the scale and resilience opportunities of a payment platform

A single payment flow can be analysed, including its states, integrations, financial reconciliation, risk controls and incident visibility, to define the first modernisation phase.

Getting to know