Fintech · Payment Aggregator
A Petroleum Company That Stopped Paying Commission on Its Own Transactions
Project Snapshot
- Client : Prominent petroleum company with a nationwide merchant network
- Industry : Petroleum retail and fintech
- Scope : End-to-end payment aggregator — merchant portal, admin portal, gateway integrations, reporting and incentives
- Platforms : Web, with WordPress and JavaScript plugins for merchant sites
- Payment modes : Credit card, debit card, net banking and wallets under one system
- Demo : Product walkthrough video below
The Impact
Zero
Third-party commission on merchant transactions once the aggregator went live
One system
Cards, net banking and wallets accepted through a single interface
Two portals
Merchant and admin, with daily, monthly and yearly transaction reporting
Tiered
Discounts at transaction thresholds for customers, outlets and merchants alike
Overview
A prominent petroleum company sells through a vast network of merchants and outlets, and every one of those sales passed through a third-party payment provider that took a commission on the way. The cost was structural, and it was felt by three groups:
- the company, whose operational costs rose with every transaction it did not control,
- its merchants, who needed reports and reconciliation the provider did not give them, and
- end customers, who wanted to pay however they liked without friction.
The decision was to stop renting the payment layer. A payment aggregator consolidates multiple payment options into a single interface — cards, wallets, bank transfers — and owning it means owning the fees, the data and the customer experience that sit on top of it.
Brain Station 23 built the end-to-end aggregator: extensive gateway coverage, seamless integration, multiple channels without upfront work, a merchant portal, an admin portal and plugins so merchant sites could connect quickly.
The result eliminated dependence on external providers and gave the company full control of payment operations for a very large user base — and a product it can now offer to other businesses.
Business Challenges
Outsourcing payments is convenient until the volume is yours. At the scale of a national petroleum network, a per-transaction commission stops being a fee and becomes a line item competing with margin.
Four pressures shaped the build.
- Commission was eroding margin. The third-party provider charged extensive fees on every merchant transaction, significantly raising operational costs.
- Control sat outside the company. Payment operations, data and rules were governed by an external organisation rather than by the business that generated the volume.
- Merchants lacked visibility. They had no detailed reporting on transaction volumes and no straightforward way to reconcile their accounts.
- Adoption could not be assumed. Replacing an established provider meant merchants, outlets and customers all had to choose to move — which required a reason.
The last point is the one most in-house payment projects miss. Building the aggregator is half the job; the other half is designing the incentive that makes a whole network switch to it.
Provider fees eating into margin?
Bring it to a 30-minute call — we will come back with an architecture and a scoped estimate.
What We Built
The build covers the full stack of a payment business: acceptance, the portals on either side of it, the integrations that connect merchant sites, and the incentive model that drives usage.
Multi-channel acceptance under one system
Customers pay by credit card, debit card, net banking or wallet through a single interface, with extensive gateway coverage and seamless integration.
A merchant app portal
Merchants see detailed reports on transaction volumes by day, month and year, which makes financial management and account reconciliation routine rather than a chore.
An admin app portal
The company gets administrative control and oversight of the whole aggregator — merchants, fees, transactions and rules — in one place.
Plug-in integration for merchant sites
WordPress and JavaScript plugins let merchants connect their sites without bespoke development, removing the upfront work that slows adoption.
Merchant fee setup
Fees are established on merchant account transactions, turning the aggregator from a cost centre into a product the company can offer to other businesses.
Threshold-based incentives
When customers reach a transaction threshold they receive discounts; the same threshold rewards the outlets they buy from, and the merchants above them. Every party has a reason to route payments through the aggregator.
The Results
The outcomes fall into three groups: what the company stopped paying, what it gained control of, and what it can now sell.
Cost, control and customer experience
Consolidating payment methods into one interface made operations more efficient and removed reliance on third-party providers, cutting cost and giving the company full control over financial transactions and customer data. Faster, more flexible payment processing raised customer satisfaction, and advanced security measures protect sensitive payment data while reducing exposure to fraud and chargebacks.
Adoption and a new line of business
The threshold-based incentive model drove merchant engagement and made the switch from the incumbent provider worthwhile for every party. Merchant fee setup lets the company monetise the aggregator with other businesses, and the tangible benefits prompted continued investment and expansion in the payment aggregation space.
The transferable lesson is that owning your payment layer is a business decision before it is a technical one. The engineering delivers the gateway; the incentive design and the fee model are what turn it from a cost saving into a product.
The cascading discount is the detail worth copying. Rewarding the customer, the outlet and the merchant on the same threshold aligns three parties who would otherwise each need convincing separately.
Paying a third party commission on volume that is really yours?
You might be watching provider fees eat into margin, running a merchant network with no reporting, or planning a switch nobody has an incentive to make. In every case, the first step is the same.
Book a 30-minute call with Brain Station 23. Bring your transaction volumes and your merchant structure, and we will come back with a proposed architecture, a delivery plan and a scoped estimate.
Provider fees eating into margin?
Bring it to a 30-minute call — we will come back with an architecture and a scoped estimate.
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