Adyen is known for providing a single end-to-end payments platform across all channels (online, in-store, in-app), unified commerce allowing a single view of the customer, and for its customer service. Less well known is that Adyen Giving helps clients to get their customers involved in the causes they care about by facilitating donations at checkout.  

Adyen Giving has already been adopted by clients such as H&M Australia, Grill’d, Etsy, and Gap. Adyen provides merchants with connection to global charities such as WFF, UNHCR, and UNICEF, and Australian charities such as Minus 8 and Pink Hope. Aside from the benefits this provides to the charities being supported, research shows that Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives such as this can increase customer retention and loyalty, attract retain and develop talent, all of which help to grow revenue.^1,2 

In this interview between Hayley Fisher, Country Manager, Australia and New Zealand, Adyen and Mangala Martinus, Managing Director, Payments Consulting Network and Merchant Advisory, we delve deep into Adyen’s strengths, differentiators, client base, achievements, innovation roadmap, and Adyen Giving, with a particular focus on the Australian business. 

MM: Please provide a brief high-level overview of your business  

HF: Adyen is a financial technology company building a payments platform that meets the rapidly evolving needs of today’s fast-growing global businesses, from omnichannel retail and hospitality to SaaS platforms. With offices in Sydney and across the globe, we provide leading companies worldwide with end-to-end payment capabilities, data-driven insights, and financial management in a single global solution.  

Adyen Australia has worked with Australian and NZ businesses since 2015. We’re proud to be working with the likes of Lorna Jane, the Cotton On Group, SHEIN, Nando’s, Freelancer.com, Kogan.com,  

Budgy Smuggler, Movember, True Alliance, Rodd & Gunn, and Munro Footwear. Our dedicated Sydney office is committed to combining our local expertise and global presence to help our customers achieve their ambitions faster.  

MM: What payments services do you offer merchants and not-for-profit organisations?  

HF: Adyen Australia makes it simple for our customers to accept, process, and settle payments via a single platform, across all sales channels – online, in-store, in-app, and omnichannel. We are a direct acquirer in Australia, and our platform connects directly to all key payment methods globally, enabling businesses to easily accept payments across online and in-person sales channels in all markets. 

We offer our merchants a single view of their customers across all channels with Unified Commerce.
It’s our solution for businesses that want to consolidate all their sales channels, payments, fraud protection, revenue optimisation, and more into one robust payments platform. With Unified Commerce, brands can build seamless cross-channel customer journeys that are consistent in all markets, while driving deeper customer loyalty.  

Some great examples of our merchants unifying their commerce are True Alliance, a leading Australian retail distributor who connected 23 websites and 100 stores across 19 global brands, including Lacoste, The North Face, Speedo, and Under Armour, and saved over $1.4m annually in the process.  

MM: Are there any industry sectors or client types that you focus on for merchant services? 

HF: Adyen Australia provides services to all types of businesses, focusing on enterprise and platform merchants across digital, mobility, retail, platforms and marketplaces, food and beverage, hospitality, and subscription. Whether it’s enabling Nando’s to integrate tokenised payment details with their app across AU & NZ, helping Koala reduce fraudulent transactions, or streamlining payments for Freelancer.com, we help businesses simplify and optimise their current payment offering both in AU and NZ as well as globally via one platform.  

MM: What do you see as Adyen’s key strengths?  

HF: Adyen’s single platform accelerates digital transformation for enterprise businesses with end-to-end payments and unified data, across all channels. With Adyen, omni-channel customers ‘level up’ from simply being able to accept payments across channels, connecting the back-end to benefit from unified data, more flexibility, and better performance.  

Our company also builds on our other strengths and key differentiators, such as:  

• Customer-centricity: We grow with our clients and innovate to benefit their growth. This means all key business decisions are motivated and initiated by existing needs, like expanding into a new market or offering new payment methods. We help our customers increase revenue, open new sales channels and markets, and achieve higher authorisation rates. We win when they win – this helps us build trusted and enduring relationships with our customers.
• Local acquiring, Risk Management, revenue optimisation with RevenueAccelerate, all on a single platform  
• One reconciliation, direct connection
• Adyen Giving
• International footprint: We have our Sydney office and work across 27 offices globally, and our team comprises over 100 nationalities. Customers can easily leverage our global presence to expand their business to new markets with ease.
• One platform: Adyen is the only solution that provides end-to-end payment capabilities for all online and offline sales channels via a single platform. Our customers’ entire payments operation can be handled with a single contract and a single set of reporting. We unshackle businesses from the complexity of managing multiple solutions.  

We have a growing local presence who understands and directly supports businesses in Australia. As well as a direct local acquirer and gateway removing the reliance on third parties providing reliability, performance and uptime in the Australian market. 

We also managed to keep strong, strategic tech partnerships across SFCC, Adobe, and now Shopify, plus our POS integrations highlighting our retail platforms – AP21, Retail Directions, and global POS partners Newstore and Oracle Retail). 

MM: Adyen Giving helps your clients to get their customers involved in the causes they care about by facilitating donations at checkout. Please describe how this works, some of the major brands that have deployed this and the success of this program?  

HF: Adyen Giving facilitates direct donations to our customers’ preferred charities in the checkout process via a two-transaction logic. The feature unlocks new revenue streams for charities, enabling consumers to do good at checkout seamlessly.  

The program helps merchants use technology for good. We are live with brands like H&M Australia and Grill’d, as well as global brands like Etsy and Gap. It also serves as the vassal for global connection to charities like WWF, UNHRC, and UNICEF. Adyen Giving also supports Australian charities such as Minus 8 and Pink Hope.  

MM: What were Adyen’s key achievements over the last 12 months?  

HF:  

1. Bringing innovation to business in Australia through financial technologies:
   o Tap to Pay on iPhone – By partnering with NewStore for the launch, Adyen has enabled Tap to Pay on iPhone for our joint customers, which accepts all forms of contactless payments, including contactless credit and debit cards, Apple Pay, and other digital wallets, using only an iPhone and a supporting iOS app — no additional hardware or payment terminal needed. Businesses including R.M.Williams, Lorna Jane, and Munro Footwear Group can now accept contactless payments using only an iPhone and the NewStore Associate iOS app. 

o Least-cost routing, also known as merchant-choice routing, has extended from in-person debit payments to online transactions in Australia with eftpos Card Not Present (CNP). This is a significant development for any business accepting transactions in Australia. Adyen is one of the first acquirers in the market certified to offer eftpos routing through CNP, and has now moved from a closed pilot to production, making this functionality available to all merchants on an opt-in basis. We support merchant choice giving businesses the control to decide whether merchant choice routing works for their business.  

o Launching Capital in November, a product that enables businesses on Adyen for Platforms to offer timely access to funding for their small and medium-sized business (SMB) users in Australia.  

2. AMS1 in-person payments terminal – perfectly designed for Australian business, AMS1 is an all-in-one payments terminal designed to promote fast and mobile payments journeys via Android, enabling new customer flows.

MM: What innovations do you have on your product/service roadmap for the next 12 months?  

HF: Here’s a brief introduction to the innovations we have for the next 12 months: 

• Data Connect for Marketing, a new product enabling omnichannel retailers to leverage payments data to improve marketing initiatives and provide an enhanced understanding of customers.
• We recently launched Capital for Australian platform customers. Capital is an exciting product that unlocks new revenue opportunities for merchants, while simplifying funding for SMBs.  
• Based on what AU and NZ businesses need, we are constantly updating our products with a weekly release cycle, continually add new features, new payment methods, and functionalities to help businesses optimise and grow.  

MM: What industry changes or trends do you see occurring over the next 2-3 years that will have a major impact on your business and/or your clients?  

HF: We have noted several:

• Increasingly channel-agnostic shoppers: Today’s consumers don’t think in sales channels, and neither should businesses. According to the latest Adyen Australia Retail Report, almost two-thirds (63%) of consumers are more loyal to retailers that enable them purchase an out-of-stock item in store, and have it sent directly home. While 62% of consumers are more loyal to retailers that let them buy online and return in store. The same percentage will abandon purchases if they can’t pay using their preferred methods, whether in stores or online.  
• Physical stores as experience centres: Despite the rise of ecommerce and widespread innovation in payments, Australian consumers still love to shop in stores. But how they shop is starting to change as consumers see physical stores as ‘experience centres’. Technology has a massive role in curating more exciting in-store experiences – Adyen helps businesses with mobile payment solutions, enabling them to capture more customer data and create more flexible and personalised checkout experiences. 
• Focus on convenience and personalisation: The future of shopping will see an increase in demand for convenience, ease of use, and personalisation.  

Retailers would be wise to consider the right technology that will help shoppers easily navigate their offerings. Over 1 in 3 (36%) Aussie shoppers said they were happy with the technology because it made shopping faster and one in five said technology made shopping in-store more fun. We also expect shoppers to demand tailored experiences, and retailers will need to leverage data and analytics to understand individual preferences and deliver personalised recommendations and offers.  

MM: What key criteria or features should a business consider when evaluating payments service providers?  

HF:  When choosing a potential payments partner, it’s good to ask these questions:  

1. Does your payments partner meet your current and future needs of the business including global expansion, product offering, fraud prevention, and driving innovation?  
2. Ask about performance metrics and the payments partner’s ability to provide data on uptime and reliability. Direct acquirers in Australia (acquirers connecting directly to both the local and international card schemes) are required to report to the RBA on a quarterly basis on platform uptime and disclose this on their websites.
3. How can the payments partner support and grow their business? 

MM: Shifting gear… World Pride 2023 in Sydney saw Adyen bring out the Amsterdam Rainbow Dress to Sydney. Please explain the significance of this and the importance of diversity and inclusion as part of Adyen’s culture.   

HF: The Amsterdam Rainbow Dress marked an extraordinary moment for the Sydney office. It’s a living work of art that drives awareness of LGBTIQ+ rights worldwide and served as a vital reminder of how important diversity and inclusion (DE&I) is at Adyen. The dress is made up of all the national flags from countries where being LGBTIQ+ is illegal, on penalty of imprisonment, torture, or capital punishment. When a country adopts LGBTIQ+ inclusive legislation, the respective flag shall be replaced with a rainbow flag. 

We centre our DE&I efforts around equity, as there is no one-size-fits-all approach to building a diverse team. We focus on the needs of the individual and ensure that our recruitment, hiring, and work practices are inclusive and accessible to everybody.  

MM: While many fintechs are cutting back on staff, Adyen is continuing to invest in staff. The fact that the global team is once again coming together in Amsterdam for your all staff event highlights this even further. Please explain Adyen’s philosophy to staffing and how you feel it differs from other payments companies.  

HF: Adyen Australia is committed to building for the long term, with a singular focus on helping our customers grow. We’re fortunate to be operating at an increasingly global scale, and this is why retaining the flexibility to invest in our global presence, team culture, and platform remains essential.  

The Adyen Formula continues to guide how we work together. We are aware that facilitating fast and effective collaboration at a larger – and increasingly global – scale requires nuance. We therefore continue to invest in an office-first approach across our 27 offices and coming together for our annual company event.  

Maintaining autonomy and speed foremost requires a team of exceptional people. To ensure we keep up our high talent bar, we safeguard our standards throughout the employee lifecycle.  

The final step of the recruitment process is still a final interview with a member of our most senior leadership team. We also continue to invest in our onboarding program, function-specific academies, and leadership training. And we continue to build the Sydney based team and are always looking for new talent.  

Author: Mangala Martinus, Managing Director, Payments Consulting Network

Mangala has over 30 years’ experience in the financial services and payments industries. He focuses on supporting clients with business strategy, payments optimisation, market expansion, and industry round tables. His clients include major financial institutions, retailers, e-commerce marketplaces, not-for-profits, ATM deployers, card schemes, and payment processors.  

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Adyen is a member of our Payment Service Provider panel. 

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SOURCES: 

1 Benevity, sourced from https://benevity.com/resources/corporate-social-responsibility-benefits#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20employee,authentic%20press%20opportunities%20can%20follow. 

2 The Benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility: An Empirical Study, Dr Jermy Galbreath, Graduate School of Business, Curtin University of Technology, sourced from: https://anzam.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf-manager/1279_GALBREATH_JEREMY-13.PDF 

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