Case Studies
$10m in Annual Payments Cost Savings for Leading Multinational Gas & C-Store Retailer
The merchants' partnership with our specialists has led to high-impact savings and market-leading arrangements.
Introduction
A large, fast-growing, multinational gas & c-store merchant engaged our experts to help achieve cost efficiencies across their North American estate.
Key Achievements
- Market-leading debit routing arrangements implemented
- $10 million in savings achieved annually
- Ongoing partnership – keeping the client at the forefront of payments
The Challenge
As a company focused on payments innovation and alternative customer engagement channels, the company was eager to ensure their customer payments experience and the costs associated with it were best-in-market. Identifying areas to reduce costs quickly would enable re-investment in business growth initiatives.
Payments in the gas & convenience industry have unique complexities such as two points of sale, fluctuating ATVs and multiple payments profiles. Additionally, navigating ongoing M&A activity by the company meant substantial changes for a growing national footprint.
The company recognized that our team’s unique visibility of the market – and work with its peers – would provide them additional transparency, identify any hidden opportunities and amplify the value of their cost reduction initiatives as they grew.
The Solution
Our experts tackled the challenges using a two-pronged approach. The first focus was on immediate cost savings to fund their desired innovation. We evaluated the client billing and contracts with their payment partners to ensure accuracy by auditing of their entire North American estate. This led to our specialists managing a network negotiation process for the clients debit routing arrangements.
The Audit
Throughout the forensic transaction level audit process, we identified significant overbilling in processing arrangements. While this was occurring only in a small number of locations, our team of experts provided insights at a transaction and store level that enabled the client and its payment partners to rectify the issue. The result was uncovering a large seven figure overcharge which led to a rebate and realignment of go-forward fees.
The Negotiation
After successfully achieving a historical rebate for the client during the audit project, we then applied our expertise to the client’s debit routing arrangements. By using the CMSPI Platform – with deep BIN and transaction level insights – and our specialist market expertise, the client was able to map out different routing scenarios and tap into sophisticated best-in market benchmarks. This in-depth data-driven approach helped the merchant achieve impactful improvements to their negotiated rates with each of the networks. Further, it amplified the coverage of the agreements and – using powerful analytics – our specialists continue to work with the client to fine-tune routing strategies as the market evolves.
“All industries are exposed to increasing swipe fees but very few are also exposed to changing market conditions like fuel & convenience merchants. Fuel merchants have to stay on top of a digitizing world all while dealing with continuous fuel price fluctuations. This project illustrates the need to balance long-term strategies with short-term cost management to maintain manageable merchant fees.”
The Results
The client achieved nearly $10 million through the audit and implementing the new debit routing arrangements.
Our partnership with the company, which began with a cost savings project, has led to:
Impactful savings that facilitated significant re-investment in growth strategies.
98% preferential rates achieved.
Market-leading arrangements achieved through Smarter Payments Intelligence.