card approval improvement
Approval moved from roughly 57% to 75% after payment-risk and authentication changes.
Payment Solutions Architecture & Operations
Improve payment acceptance, integrations and conversion.
I diagnose underperforming payment flows, design better payment architecture and help implement the fix across PSPs, routing, 3DS, local methods, acquiring and checkout.
Measured improvements from payment-performance work.
suspected failures correctly reclassified
Transaction-level investigation separated reconciliation issues from genuine payment failures.
expirations isolated to one payment-timing issue
A major local-method expiration pattern was traced to payment and reservation timers falling out of sync.
routing failures turned into reusable rules
Currency and acquiring issues were converted into repeatable configuration and monitoring logic.
Where I help improve payment performance.
I work across the commercial, operational and technical layers of a payment system. The scope depends on the problem, not on a fixed package.
01
Acceptance & conversion
Improve the share of legitimate customers who successfully complete payment.
- Authorization & approval rates
- 3DS and authentication
- Fraud-rule friction
- Issuer / acquirer behaviour
02
Integrations & routing
Design and troubleshoot the technical path between checkout, PSPs and payment outcomes.
- PSP / API integrations
- Routing & currency logic
- Wallet configuration
- Payment states & webhooks
03
Local & cross-border payments
Build payment setups around how customers actually pay in each market.
- Local payment methods
- Local vs international acquiring
- Market-specific PSP setup
- Currency & authentication design
04
Observability & operations
Create the visibility needed to know what is failing, where and why.
- Payment monitoring
- Logs & transaction tracing
- Refunds & expirations
- Reconciliation & fulfilment
What do you need to improve?
Each engagement starts with the business symptom and follows it through the payment stack until the technical cause and action path are clear.
01
Low payment acceptance?
Improve approval and reduce avoidable payment failures.
I investigate acceptance across the full flow rather than treating PSP declines as the answer. I connect issuer responses, acquiring, routing, 3DS, fraud rules, currencies, checkout behaviour and the integration itself to find what is actually suppressing conversion.
What I look at
- Approval or authorization rates are falling
- One market, issuer group or payment method underperforms
- 3DS or fraud controls create unnecessary friction
- Decline reasons are too generic to act on
Tools & systems
AdyendLocalCheckout.comMercadoPagoPayPalBigQueryGoogle Cloud LoggingNew RelicLooker StudioSQL / Python
Output
Root cause, quantified impact, recommended changes and a measurement plan for acceptance improvement.
02
Expanding into a new market?
Launch payment methods and acquiring that fit the market.
I help design market-specific payment setups across local methods, PSPs, acquiring, currencies, wallets and authentication. The objective is not to add more methods. It is to improve successful payment completion with the right architecture for local behaviour.
What I look at
- You are launching in a new country
- Local cards fail through international acquiring
- Customers expect Pix, OXXO, wallets or another local method
- Currencies or provider capabilities do not match the market
Tools & systems
PixOXXOMercadoPagoAplazoApple PayGoogle PayPayPalAdyendLocal3DS2
Output
A market-specific payment design covering methods, providers, acquiring, currencies, authentication, integration requirements and monitoring.
03
Need to know what is actually happening?
Make payment performance measurable from checkout to fulfilment.
I combine PSP data with application logs, transaction data, analytics and session behaviour so teams can distinguish payment failures from integration, fulfilment, reconciliation or customer-experience problems.
What I look at
- Payments expire without a clear explanation
- Refunds increase after apparently successful payments
- Teams disagree about where the failure occurs
- PSP dashboards do not explain the customer outcome
Tools & systems
BigQueryGoogle Cloud LoggingNew RelicLooker Studio / Data StudioAmplitudePSP portalsSQLPythonTransaction reconciliation
Output
A clear operating view of approval, declines, 3DS, expirations, refunds and payment-to-fulfilment status, with anomalies routed to the right owner.
04
Need to design or fix an integration?
Improve the technical payment flow, not only the reporting around it.
Depending on the problem, I help design, configure, troubleshoot and technically support implementation across payment APIs, payment states, wallets, authentication, routing, expiry logic, error handling, logging and reconciliation.
What I look at
- A wallet or payment method fails after launch
- Payment states do not match booking or fulfilment states
- Routing or currency logic needs redesign
- Engineering needs a payment-focused problem owner
Tools & systems
PSP APIsIntegration dataWebhooks & payment states3DS / 3DS2Wallet configurationRouting rulesApplication logsSQL / Python
Output
A technically grounded integration design or diagnosis that engineering, payment operations and commercial teams can execute against.
Problems I have diagnosed and moved toward resolution.
Client names and transaction volumes are intentionally omitted. The focus is the payment mechanics and the measurable impact.
Card approval recovery
Connected payment-risk and authentication behaviour to a material approval gap, then supported the changes that moved card acceptance from roughly 57% to 75%.
Pix expiration leak
Traced a large share of payment expirations to Pix QR timing and reservation windows falling out of sync, defining both configuration and UX fixes.
Local-card acceptance strategy
Connected weak local-card acceptance to issuer constraints and international acquiring, then structured an immediate alternative-method path and a local-acquiring solution.
Currency-routing failures
Identified a structural mismatch between offered currencies and local acquiring capabilities, then translated it into reusable configuration rules and monitoring logic.
Payment ecosystem
Payment providers, methods and networks I’ve encountered through my work.
Experience across payment configuration, integration behaviour, acceptance, routing, authentication, transaction analytics and operations.
Also including Checkout.com, MercadoPago, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Aplazo, cards and 3DS / 3DS2. Logos indicate hands-on exposure, not employment or partnership.
Payment solutions across different market conditions.
Acquiring, issuer behaviour, payment methods, currencies and customer expectations change by market. I use that context when diagnosing or designing payment flows.
Mexico · Brazil · Colombia
LATAM
Local methods, local acquiring, international cards, currencies, issuer behaviour and PSP routing.
Regional payment architecture
MENA
Acceptance, 3DS2, international versus local acquiring, issuer constraints and regional PSP strategy.
Cross-border digital commerce
Europe & international
Cards, wallets, multi-currency flows, PSP integrations and international payment operations.
Background
Payments, finance, data and technical execution.
Payment performance sits between commercial economics and technical systems. My background lets me work across both sides of that problem.
Former CFA charterholder
Passed all three CFA Program examinations. Earlier experience in European institutional finance across risk, credit, financial analysis and complex transactions.
Data and engineering depth
Python, SQL, APIs, data engineering, BigQuery, application logs, cloud infrastructure and analytical systems used to trace behaviour beyond a dashboard.
50+ B2B partner companies supported
Growth, conversion and payment-performance work across global travel technology and ground-transportation businesses of different sizes.
Architecture and operations
PSPs, acquiring, routing, authentication, local methods, wallets, transaction analytics, incident diagnosis and payment reliability.
Who I can support
From focused diagnostics to cross-market payment projects.
Complex stacks, multiple markets, high transaction volume and difficult-to-isolate performance issues.
New markets, additional PSPs, local methods, monitoring or a more deliberate payment architecture.
Specialist payment knowledge for a defined problem without building a full internal payments team.
Particularly relevant where payment success must also connect reliably to booking, fulfilment, refunds and reconciliation.
Payment solutions FAQ.
Clear answers for teams deciding whether I can help with a payment performance, architecture or integration problem.
Can you help if our payment acceptance rate is low?
Yes. I investigate acceptance across the full payment flow, including issuer responses, acquiring, PSP configuration, routing, fraud rules, 3DS, currencies, checkout behaviour and integration issues. The objective is to isolate the root cause and identify changes that can be measured against approval and conversion.
Can you help us integrate a local payment method?
Yes. I can help assess whether a local payment method makes commercial and technical sense, define the payment flow, evaluate provider and acquiring implications, support configuration or integration troubleshooting, and establish monitoring after launch.
Can you help with PSP routing and multi-provider setups?
Yes. Routing problems can involve provider capabilities, acquiring geography, currency, payment method, issuer behaviour, fallback logic and the integration itself. I can analyse existing behaviour and help design clearer routing rules and controls.
Can you work directly with our engineering team?
Yes. My work frequently sits between payment operations, analytics and engineering. I work with logs, APIs and integration behaviour, payment configuration, transaction data and technical incident evidence so engineering teams have a clear problem definition and implementation path.
Can you tell whether declines come from the PSP, acquirer, issuer, 3DS or fraud rules?
Often, yes. That requires combining PSP responses with issuer and acquiring behaviour, 3DS results, routing, fraud configuration, currencies and transaction-level segmentation rather than relying on a single dashboard or decline code.
Can you help with refunds or successful payments that do not complete fulfilment?
Yes. I have investigated payment incidents where the payment state, booking or fulfilment system and reconciliation layer told different stories. I trace the transaction across systems to establish what actually happened and where the process failed.
Do you only work with large companies?
No. I can work with large platforms, growing companies and smaller businesses that need specialist payment knowledge without building a full internal payments team. The scope can range from a focused diagnostic to a broader architecture or operational improvement project.
Which regions have you worked with?
My payment work has covered LATAM, MENA, Europe and international digital commerce, with particularly deep hands-on work in Latin American markets.
Which payment providers and methods have you worked with?
Experience includes Adyen, dLocal, Checkout.com, PayPal, MercadoPago, Pix, OXXO, Apple Pay, Google Pay, cards, 3DS and 3DS2, plus local-method and acquiring analysis for additional markets.
What is your professional background?
My background combines finance, data engineering, analytics, digital commerce and payment operations. I passed all three CFA Program examinations and was previously a CFA charterholder. I also worked in European institutional finance before moving deeply into technical analytics, B2B digital commerce and payment-performance work across more than 50 partner companies.
Payment performance
Discuss a payment issue
Improve payment performance with a clear root cause and action plan.
Send me the market, payment stack and what you are seeing. I will reply with whether I can help and what I would look at first.