Recent announcements for Developer Portals includes Visa, Capital One, OCBC Bank, SoftBank, and HyperWallet, and now Moneris joins the ranks:
“The Moneris Developer Portal provides easy access to information and tools businesses need to add payment capabilities to their applications.
The Moneris Developer Portal complements Moneris Gateway, a payment processing platform that allows businesses to securely complete transactions. The improved Developer Portal offers easier access to information, full search capabilities, interactive knowledgebase and regular blogs. Existing Application Program Interfaces (APIs) have been improved to support payments from across North America and a new Software Development Kit (SDK) offers more flexibility to developers when integrating in-app payments.”
There are several reasons why a company might entertain the launch of a developer portal, but key reasons typically include making it easy for new and existing customers to enable their applications and/or establish a draw for new innovative developers by suggesting that existing customers represent a sales opportunity.
The Visa developer portal will clearly draw developers that have innovative solutions they want to sell into banks. The Moneris developer portal is likely more balanced, representing tools desirable to existing customers and partners as indicated in the press release:
“With the redesign of the Developer Portal, Moneris now supports in-app payments by offering API and SDK information for Apple Pay integration. This type of payment support is critical to companies like Tacit Innovations, the creators of maegan™, a mobile ordering platform designed for restaurants and other hospitality venues. Using the tools within the Moneris Developer Portal, maegan is able to integrate into point-of-sale (POS), Payment and Loyalty solutions for seamless operation.”
Launching a developer portal is expensive, especially when a sandbox is offered to enable testing. The systems made available need to be secured, usage is difficult to predict, so performance of the API itself and of back-end resources being accessed can be challenging. The API structure itself may prove challenging, in that when APIs are put into a new use case, often it highlights limitations in the way the API was structured and requires significant re-engineering. Despite these problems, companies with sufficient customers and software assets can significantly broaden their influence and reduce the costs associated with partner development by introducing and marketing a developer portal.
Overview by Tim Sloane, VP, Payments Innovation at Mercator Advisory Group
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