How to Disrupt the Payment Sector with “Bespoke Solutions”

Since the pandemic, online purchases have boomed, and that trend is likely to continue.

Many online payment processors have started up in the past few years, offering convenient ways to make purchases. One such company is Total Processing, an advanced payment processor for businesses, providing bespoke solutions.

In this episode of Disruption Talks, Dally Singh, Chief Product Officer at Total Processing, discusses custom payment solutions, where Total Processing is heading in the future, and much more.

How do custom payment solutions work?

Online payment solutions are not a new invention, but as business needs grow more complex, custom solutions are increasingly necessary.

A custom payment solution like Total Processing works closely with its customers to understand the business, its needs, and what features will work best. For example, Total Processing’s recurring payments feature gives you total control to build a flexible plan to keep your customers happy, thanks to its advanced billing system.

Sean O’Connor: Could you give us a quick introduction to yourself?

Dally Singh: I’ve always been into tech, and anything related to it, so I always knew I’d pursue a career in IT. I wanted a job where I’d be making things, so I went to university and got a degree in software engineering. Later, I did a Master’s in Computer Science.

Initially, I went to a few agencies to develop websites, but everything became a little bit monotonous. I started freelancing to look for projects that appealed to me.

I've always been into developing things, and I'm a keen fitness enthusiast, so I developed a fitness application. It was one of those things which had a very niche market. And I got it to a really good point, but I couldn't really take it any further than that. So I left that and started looking at what was new in the market because tech is always evolving.

When I came across Total Processing, I had no background in finance or payments. I just liked the look of the company, so I joined and haven’t looked back since.

What would you put down to your success and that of Total Processing’s?

I’ve always been a developer at heart because I love creating things. I joined Total Processing as a developer and slowly moved up to head the department alongside the CTO, then I was VP of Tech, and now I’m the Chief Product Officer.

What I like is that it was never a case of you’re a developer, you’ll always remain a developer. The goal at Total Processing is that everyone is very much involved in the company, and so everyone gets to touch on little things here and there across the company.

What does an average day look like for you?

It varies, but I’m still very much involved in the day-to-day stuff. A lot of it is research, seeing what your competitors are doing, and what’s happening in the payment processing landscape in general. It’s also about looking at our internal processes and how they can be improved.

I like to focus on developing the team as well. I think a key thing across any company is nurturing the junior developers to bring them up in terms of skills and instilling that business knowledge in them as well.

Total Processing is expanding, so what kind of metrics do you use to measure growth?

We've essentially got internal processes, and then we've got the products that we are offering to our merchants and our clients.

With internal processes first, it comes down to resources. I will be implementing strategies and workflows that essentially frees up resources. This will free up time and cash as well because the last thing any company wants is keep growing but only scale the headcount. There comes a point where you just can't keep doing that.

For external processes, it comes down to products, so innovating and developing new products that will essentially help our clients, but then also focusing on the ones we already have. We work on improving workflow and processes for all merchants, which will ultimately reduce friction for them.

Can you tell us more about what Total Processing can do?

In a nutshell, what we do is process payments, but that's too simplified. That's a bit like saying Apple just develops iPhones or that all a phone does is make phone calls, which we know isn't true. So we do a lot more than process payments.

On a bigger scale, we provide solutions to our merchants, and I think that's our main USP. That's where we're different from companies like Stripe or Worldpay. We don't like to view our merchants as just customers. We like to see them as partners. Their success is our success.

We offer bespoke solutions in various ways. We have our standard products that we offer, but if they need them slightly adjusting or something adding on, we can provide that custom approach.

What changes have you noticed at Total Processing and its customers since the pandemic?

It’s a tough one because it was disastrous for everyone. It may sound a little insensitive, but as a business, Total Processing thrived. It grew a lot. During COVID, businesses couldn’t maintain a physical presence or open their stores, so they had to turn to ecommerce, which we supported them with.

A lot of people have realized that we don’t need physical stores, and everything can be done with ecommerce, so more people are turning to online purchases.

We just want to be at the forefront, facilitating payments, but then at the same time, helping new businesses grow.

What are Total Processing’s plans for the next year or two?

Without giving too much away, we received £5 million in funding at the end of 2020, so this year we’re putting that to good use. We’ve used it to expand the team, especially in tech and sales.

We’ve also expanded into Dubai, because the UAE is still a very much untapped market, so we want to get in there first. Eventually, we will expand our presence across Europe as well.

What’s next in terms of product updates and features?

Our next big release will be Total Control 3. I worked on the original version, Total Control 1, so we have updated it a few times since.

It’s an amazing tool and one of our biggest USPs. It’s a way to manage your account and payment data. It gives you comprehensive reports, lets you send out pay-by links, use invoices, and receipts, and much more – all in one place.

One of our biggest USPs here is recurring payments, also known as subscriptions. I’ve not seen another company that offers recurring payments as intuitively as we do. Our users can set up a recurring payment, but then they can change and customize the amounts or even omit payments, which was handy during the pandemic.

What are the most pressing tech challenges that keep you up at night?

The most pressing challenge for us is actually a good one to have. Within our team, we’ve got an array of amazing ideas flying out every single day. The issue is that we need to prioritize them. In an ideal world, we’d execute all these ideas, but it’s just not feasible.

What do your customers say about Total Processing?

We’re very big on customer feedback, and the feedback to date has been incredibly positive.

A lot of what we've developed is off the back of the customer feedback we've received. We view our customers and clients as partners, so we like to ask them, “how do you think we can make this better?”

A lot of the feedback we do get is fairly automated as well, which is a great thing. I don't think feedback should ever be pried out of people where you're constantly chasing them for reviews.

If you had a magic wand and could teach every 12-year-old in the world a new skill or piece of knowledge, what would it be?

As much as I want to say tech, I don’t think it’s the right answer. You can’t teach someone something that they have no passion for.

So my advice would be to find your passion. Find something you enjoy doing and truly find fun to do. For some, it may come early. For others it may come late, but eventually, you will have that lightbulb moment when you find your passion.

This discussion is part of our Disruption Talks recordings, where we invite experts to share their insights on winning innovation strategies, the next generation of disruptors, and scaling digital products. To get unlimited access to this interview and many more, sign up here: www.netguru.com/disruption/talks