Chile’s Klap expects transactions to skyrocket with new technology solution
Chilean payments fintech Klap expects the number of transactions it processes to rise rapidly by 2024 after selecting the SmartVista suite of European technology provider BPC.
As a result, it has begun to operate in the world of acquirers, allowing sales with credit, debit and prepaid cards.
"This world is different from where we were, it’s one with a very large number of transactions and very high speed," Levy Abud, Klap's technological development and innovation manager, told BNamericas.
The previous solution it had was not going to allow the company to scale its business.
“It’s a business that has grown a lot, especially due to the pandemic. At a global level, we’ve seen a significant increase in the requirements for solutions of this type, both to serve the traditional physical acquiring business as well as e-commerce,” Mariflor Alice, BPC's regional director of payments, told BNamericas.
The fintech is growing at a double-digit rate each month in transactions. It currently processes tens of millions of transactions a month and the goal is to reach hundreds of millions by the end of 2023 or mid-2024.
Klap is in the process of implementing the solution with a team of professionals from the company and an external consultant for the management process.
It projects the implementation process to last 8-12 months and is currently in month three.
MOVE TO CLOUD
Klap works on the private cloud with two datacenters in Chile and is working with "an American company" to make the move to the public cloud.
For now, the company has its data warehouse and development team working in the cloud. In addition, it has the CRM contracted as software as a service (SaaS).
In the case of BPC, the solution is ‘on cloud’. “I need to have more control and management given the volumes we’re doing. I would have loved to contract BPC SaaS but there is a cost-benefit financial issue and with our volumes it didn't make sense,” said Abud.
BPC announced a few months ago the implementation of the regional cloud for the Americas in the US. In this way, the company brings services to the region that it previously offered from Europe.
SELECTION PROCESS
Klap conducted a streamlined request for proposals (RFP) process, where vendors submitted their proposals to solve the company's problems.
The fintech clarified that "it did not accept power point" and that it sought to see the solutions and experiences of clients.
“All my life I worked in banking and I was always responsible for buying solutions and the RFP process is always very tedious and long and here at Klap I didn't want to repeat that model,” said Abud.
"I hope that the market and the world change to this type of methodology because it gets more out of it," added Meyer Saavedra, solutions consultant for Latin America, at BPC.
The process of selecting the BPC solution lasted approximately three months. “We created a dedicated team of top technology and operational professionals to work exclusively on this,” he said.
Gloss