2012
Founded on payment depth
Pay Engineers started as a boutique consultancy focused exclusively on acquiring logic, ledger design and acquirer integrations — not general software outsourcing.
About Pay Engineers
We engineer payment infrastructures that businesses truly own
Pay Engineers is a specialized team of payment architects, backend engineers and compliance specialists. We design and build custom processors, gateways, wallets and fintech platforms — from first workshop to production and long-term evolution.
- Independent stacks — no lock-in to generic third-party PSPs
- Senior payment architects embedded on every engagement
- PCI-ready security, compliance alignment and cloud-native scale
At a glance
- Founded
- 2012
- Projects delivered
- 85+
- Countries
- 18
- Team focus
- Payments only
End-to-end processor & gateway engineering
Discovery → deployment → long-term evolution
English-speaking delivery, global client base
12+
Years in payments
85+
Platforms delivered
18
Countries served
40+
Stack technologies
99.9%
Uptime targets
98%
Client retention
Our mission
Give ambitious businesses full control over how money moves
Generic payment service providers force trade-offs: limited customization, opaque economics and product roadmaps you do not control. We exist to change that.
Our mission is to help fintechs, banks, marketplaces and enterprises build proprietary payment infrastructures — acquiring, routing, settlement, wallets and merchant tooling — engineered for their markets, compliance scope and growth trajectory.
Every architecture we deliver is designed to be owned, operated and evolved by your team, with our engineers as long-term partners when you need us.
We do not resell third-party PSP software or white-label someone else's processor. We engineer the core logic — ledgers, routing engines, fee models, reconciliation pipelines and partner connectors — so your platform reflects your business, not a vendor's product template.
That means your team sets interchange strategy, defines merchant onboarding rules, chooses which acquirers to route through and controls the data layer that powers your analytics, risk models and regulatory reporting.
- Proprietary acquiring & settlement logic
- Multi-market expansion without stack rewrites
- Compliance embedded from architecture phase
- Full source-code ownership & knowledge transfer
- Long-term evolution under SLA-backed support
- Direct access to senior payment architects
Our vision
A world where every serious fintech runs on infrastructure it controls
We believe the next generation of payment leaders will differentiate on product velocity, unit economics and trust — not on renting the same PSP stack as everyone else. Pay Engineers accelerates that shift with deep payment expertise and modern engineering discipline.
Ownership
Your code, your data models, your business rules and your partner relationships — not a black-box SaaS dependency.
Precision
Payment systems demand correctness. We design for idempotency, auditability and financial integrity at every layer.
Partnership
We work as an extension of your team — transparent delivery, shared milestones and knowledge transfer built in.
Longevity
Platforms must evolve across markets and regulations. We architect for change, not just launch day.
Our story
Built on payment expertise since 2012
From boutique consultancy to global fintech engineering partner — a timeline of how Pay Engineers grew alongside the payment industry.
2016
First full-stack processors
We delivered end-to-end custom processors for fintechs expanding across multiple African and European corridors, establishing our eight-phase delivery methodology.
2019
Enterprise & marketplace scale
Engagements grew into high-volume marketplace escrow, white-label wallets and multi-tenant merchant platforms with strict PCI and AML requirements.
2023
Intelligent configurator
We launched our guided configurator so stakeholders could align on scope, architecture and stack recommendations before development — reducing discovery time by months.
Today
Global fintech partner
We support clients across 18 countries with cloud-native payment infrastructures, SLA-backed evolution and dedicated senior engineering teams.
Our values
How we show up for every client
Principles that guide architecture decisions, delivery practices and long-term partnerships.
Transparency
Clear scope, honest timelines and visible progress — no surprises at invoice or go-live.
Security first
Threat modeling, least-privilege access and compliance are designed in from day one, not bolted on before audit.
Craftsmanship
Clean APIs, maintainable codebases and documentation your team can own for years.
Accountability
Named leads, defined SLAs and direct access to the engineers building your platform.
Pragmatism
We balance ideal architecture with time-to-market — MVP paths that do not compromise financial correctness.
Continuous learning
Payment rails, schemes and regulations evolve constantly. We invest in R&D so your stack stays current.
Who we serve
Industries & client profiles
We work with organizations that treat payments as a core product — not an afterthought. Each engagement is shaped by sector-specific compliance, volumes and go-to-market constraints.
Digital banks, lending platforms and payment startups launching proprietary acquiring and wallet products.
Institutions modernizing legacy stacks or launching new digital payment brands under license.
Platforms needing split payments, escrow, sub-merchant onboarding and commission engines.
B2B software embedding payments, billing orchestration and partner payout workflows.
High-volume merchants and aggregators requiring custom routing, retry logic and reconciliation.
Cross-border money movement with multi-currency ledgers, corridor rules and compliance hooks.
Government and utility payment portals with audit trails, accessibility and high availability.
Large organizations replacing fragmented PSP integrations with a unified internal payment hub.
What we deliver
End-to-end payment engineering capabilities
Beyond writing code — we cover architecture, integrations, compliance, cloud operations and the long-term evolution of your platform.
Payment architecture
End-to-end system design for processors, gateways and ledger-centric platforms.
- Domain-driven payment models
- Multi-rail routing design
- Settlement & reconciliation flows
- Fee engine & pricing logic
- Disaster recovery topology
- Scalability & sharding strategy
Full-stack development
Backend services, APIs, admin portals and merchant-facing applications.
- REST & webhook APIs
- Merchant & admin dashboards
- Role-based access control
- Real-time notifications
- SDK & sandbox environments
- CI/CD & automated testing
Acquirer & bank integrations
Certified connectors and orchestration across global and local payment partners.
- Card scheme certifications
- Local APM connectors
- Bank file & ISO 20022 flows
- 3DS & SCA implementations
- Sandbox-to-production cutover
- Partner certification support
Compliance & risk
Architectures aligned with PCI DSS, GDPR, AML/KYC and market-specific frameworks.
- PCI scope reduction
- KYC / KYB workflow design
- Transaction monitoring hooks
- Audit logging & immutability
- Data residency planning
- Regulatory change management
Cloud & DevOps
Production-grade infrastructure on AWS, Azure, GCP or private cloud.
- Kubernetes & container orchestration
- Infrastructure as code
- Observability & alerting
- Secrets & key management
- Zero-downtime deployments
- Performance tuning
Post-launch evolution
SLA-backed support, feature roadmaps and platform growth across new markets.
- 24/7 monitoring setup
- Incident response playbooks
- New corridor expansion
- API versioning strategy
- Capacity planning reviews
- Dedicated engineering retainer
Our team
Senior specialists, not generalists
Every Pay Engineers engagement is staffed with practitioners who have shipped payment systems in production — architects, integrators, security engineers and delivery leads working as one unit.
We are not a body-shop rotating juniors between unrelated projects. The engineers on your processor build have likely designed ledgers, certified acquirer integrations or led PCI assessments before.
Teams are assembled per engagement: a named technical lead, domain architects for acquiring and compliance, backend engineers, integration specialists and DevOps — scaled to your project phase and timeline.
- Named technical lead on every project
- Direct access to engineers — no account-manager filter
- Knowledge transfer built into every phase
- Average 8+ years payment systems experience
- Cross-functional squads — not siloed handoffs
- English-speaking delivery, EU & Africa time zones
Senior specialists who have designed acquiring systems, ledgers and multi-rail routing for high-volume platforms.
Scheme rules & interchange
Ledger double-entry design
Settlement cycles
Chargeback lifecycle
Engineers fluent in mission-critical APIs, event-driven systems and financial data integrity.
PHP / Laravel
Java & Go services
PostgreSQL tuning
Redis & queues
Experts in acquirer certifications, bank files, webhooks and third-party KYC / fraud tools.
Acquirer APIs
3DS servers
Webhook reliability
Partner sandbox testing
Practitioners who embed PCI DSS, encryption, access control and auditability into every layer.
Threat modeling
Tokenization
PCI SAQ support
GDPR & AML alignment
Operators who build observable, resilient cloud infrastructure for payment workloads.
AWS / Azure / GCP
Kubernetes
Prometheus & Grafana
On-call runbooks
Leads who translate business goals into backlogs, milestones and stakeholder-ready demos.
Agile delivery
UAT coordination
Executive reporting
Scope governance
Why partner with us
Built differently from a generic software agency
Payment infrastructure is not a side project for us. Here is how working with Pay Engineers compares to a typical dev shop.
Topic
Typical agency
Pay Engineers
Team composition
Rotating juniors, account managers as go-between
Named senior architects and engineers on every engagement
Domain expertise
General software across many industries
100% payment infrastructure — processors, ledgers, rails
Deliverable ownership
Code in agency repository, unclear handover
Your codebase, your cloud, full knowledge transfer
Commercial model
Open-ended time & materials, scope creep
Discovery → fixed scope or long-term retainer with clear SLAs
Post-launch
Project ends at go-live
Hypercare, evolution roadmaps and regulatory update support
Discovery sprint
Fast alignment on scope, architecture options and a proposal you can take to your board.
Fixed-scope build
Structured delivery from signed requirements to production with milestone-based billing.
Embedded partnership
Dedicated engineering team as an extension of yours — evolution, new corridors and SLA-backed ops.
Technology stack
Modern, battle-tested tooling
We select technologies based on your scale, team skills and compliance requirements — not trends. Below is a representative stack we deploy across payment platforms.
PHP
Laravel
Java
Go
Node.js
Python
PostgreSQL
Redis
Docker
Kubernetes
AWS
Azure
Google Cloud
Backend
Mission-critical APIs, ledger services and merchant-facing applications.
PHP
Laravel
Java
Go
Node.js
Python
Data & cache
PostgreSQL, Redis, event stores and read replicas for financial workloads.
PostgreSQL
Redis
Event stores
Read replicas
Infrastructure
Container orchestration and cloud-native deployments across major providers.
Docker
Kubernetes
AWS
Azure
Google Cloud
Global reach
Multi-market payment expertise
We have delivered infrastructures across Europe, Africa, the Middle East and the Americas — with deep understanding of local rails, licensing models and settlement practices.
Europe
PSD2, SEPA, UK Open Banking and multi-acquirer orchestration across EU and UK markets.
- 28+
- EU projects
- 12
- Markets
- 4
- EMI builds
Active markets
France
Germany
UK
Spain
Italy
Nordics
Benelux
Poland
Payment rails
- SEPA Credit Transfer
- SEPA Instant
- Cards (Visa/MC)
- Open Banking
- iDEAL
- Bancontact
Regulatory frameworks
- PSD2 / SCA
- GDPR
- PCI DSS
- AML5
Regional highlights
- Multi-acquirer routing across EU markets
- EMI & payment institution licensing support
- 3DS2 and SCA-compliant checkout flows
Africa
Mobile money, local card schemes and cross-border settlement for pan-African fintech expansion.
- 22+
- Projects
- 14
- Countries
- 6
- Mobile money hubs
Active markets
Nigeria
Kenya
Ghana
Senegal
Ivory Coast
South Africa
Egypt
Morocco
Payment rails
- M-Pesa
- MTN MoMo
- Orange Money
- Local card switches
- Bank transfers
- USSD
Regulatory frameworks
- CBN guidelines
- PCI DSS
- Local AML/KYC
- Data protection acts
Regional highlights
- Pan-African processor deployments
- Mobile money aggregator integrations
- Multi-currency settlement ledgers
Middle East
Digital wallet and acquiring platforms aligned with regional licensing and Sharia-compliant product variants.
- 11+
- Projects
- 6
- Markets
- 3
- Wallet platforms
Active markets
UAE
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
Bahrain
Kuwait
Oman
Payment rails
- mada
- Benefit
- Cards
- Bank transfers
- Digital wallets
Regulatory frameworks
- SAMA / CBUAE
- PCI DSS
- AML / CFT
- Sharia compliance options
Regional highlights
- Licensed wallet & EMI architectures
- Local scheme certification support
- Arabic & English merchant portals
Americas
US and LATAM payment acceptance, marketplace escrow and remittance corridor integrations.
- 18+
- Projects
- 9
- Countries
- 5
- Marketplace builds
Active markets
United States
Canada
Brazil
Mexico
Colombia
Chile
Argentina
Peru
Payment rails
- ACH
- Wire
- PIX
- SPEI
- Cards
- Cash vouchers
Regulatory frameworks
- PCI DSS
- SOC 2
- BACEN / CNBV
- FinCEN alignment
Regional highlights
- LATAM local APM orchestration
- US acquiring & gateway builds
- Cross-border remittance engines
Our commitments
What you can expect from us
Promises we make to every client — whether you need a discovery sprint or a multi-year platform evolution.
These are not marketing slogans. They are contractual and operational standards baked into our statements of work, delivery rituals and post-launch support agreements.
When you engage Pay Engineers, you get clarity on who builds your system, what you own at the end, and how we behave when priorities shift or production incidents occur.
- Written deliverables at every milestone
- No vendor lock-in on infrastructure
- Escalation path to senior architects
- Post-launch hypercare included in every build
You own the platform
Source code, infrastructure and partner contracts belong to you — we build it, you control it.
Direct engineer access
No layers of account management. You speak to the people designing and writing your payment system.
Documentation by default
Architecture decision records, API references and runbooks delivered alongside the code.
Compliance-aware delivery
PCI, GDPR and AML considerations woven into design — not a pre-launch panic.
Honest scoping
We tell you what is realistic, what can wait and what will cost more if deferred.
Long-term availability
After go-live we remain available for incidents, evolution and regulatory changes under agreed terms.
Case highlights
Real platforms, measurable outcomes
Representative engagements — anonymized where required — with scope, stack, delivery metrics and business impact.
Processor
Series B fintech · West & East Africa
Africa
Pan-African payment processor
- Duration
- 14 months
- Team
- 9 engineers
- Volume
- €2.4M monthly GMV at launch
- Region
- Africa
Tech stack
Laravel
PostgreSQL
Redis
AWS
Kubernetes
- 40%
- Cost reduction
- 3× faster
- Onboarding speed
- 99.95%
- Year-one uptime
- 8
- Markets live
Context
Fintech expanding across 8 countries with fragmented local rails, mobile money dominance and no unified acquiring stack.
Challenge
Dependence on third-party PSPs limited margins, slowed merchant onboarding and blocked custom routing logic for mobile money vs cards.
Solution
Custom processor with multi-currency ledger, M-Pesa & MTN connectors, smart routing engine, merchant portal and reconciliation pipeline.
Key outcomes
- 40% reduction in processing costs
- Merchant onboarding cut from 5 days to 8 hours
- 99.95% uptime in year one
- 4M+ transactions processed in month six
Marketplace
Industrial B2B marketplace · EU
Europe
B2B marketplace escrow
- Duration
- 16 weeks MVP
- Team
- 6 engineers
- Volume
- €120M+ processed (year one)
- Region
- Europe
Tech stack
Java
PostgreSQL
Kafka
Azure
- €120M+
- Processed
- -35%
- Dispute rate
- 16 wks
- Time to launch
- 2,400+
- Active sellers
Context
Industrial marketplace handling high-value cross-border trades between verified suppliers and corporate buyers.
Challenge
Buyers and sellers required trusted fund holding, milestone-based releases and auditable dispute resolution across jurisdictions.
Solution
Escrow engine with KYC/KYB workflows, milestone release rules, dispute center, automated settlement and admin audit trail.
Key outcomes
- €120M+ in escrow volume year one
- Dispute rate reduced by 35%
- MVP launched in 16 weeks
- Full PSD2-compliant fund flows
Wallet
Licensed EMI · Nordics
Europe
White-label neobank wallet
- Duration
- 5 months
- Team
- 8 engineers
- Volume
- 50k+ wallets in 12 months
- Region
- Europe
Tech stack
Go
PostgreSQL
Redis
GCP
- 5 months
- Go-live
- 50k+
- Wallets
- Reduced
- PCI scope
- 97.2%
- Card auth rate
Context
Financial brand launching a digital wallet and card product for SMEs under an existing EMI license.
Challenge
Time-to-market pressure with strict PCI, GDPR and PSD2 requirements — off-the-shelf wallets could not support custom fee logic.
Solution
White-label wallet platform, virtual & physical card issuing API, SME onboarding portal and compliance-ready admin back-office.
Key outcomes
- Live in 5 months from signed scope
- 50k+ wallets opened in 12 months
- PCI-ready tokenization architecture
- 97.2% card authorization rate
Remittance
Cross-border payments startup · US–LATAM
Americas
LATAM remittance hub
- Duration
- 11 months
- Team
- 7 engineers
- Volume
- $18M monthly corridors
- Region
- Americas
Tech stack
Node.js
PostgreSQL
Redis
AWS
- 6 live
- Corridors
- < 2h
- Settlement time
- Automated
- Reconciliation
- $18M
- Monthly volume
Context
Remittance startup routing funds from the US to Mexico, Colombia and Brazil with local payout partners.
Challenge
Fragmented partner APIs, manual reconciliation and no unified FX spread engine across corridors.
Solution
Remittance orchestration hub with corridor rules, FX engine, partner connectors (SPEI, PIX), compliance hooks and merchant API.
Key outcomes
- 6 corridors live within 11 months
- Settlement under 2 hours for PIX payouts
- Automated daily reconciliation
- FinCEN-aligned compliance workflows
Client voices
Trusted by fintech teams worldwide
Real feedback from leaders who chose to build proprietary payment infrastructure with Pay Engineers.
4.9
Based on 20+ reviews
Testimonial
Achievements
85+
Payment platforms delivered across processors, gateways, wallets and marketplaces — from MVP to enterprise scale.
Numbers
98%
Client retention rate — long-term partnerships for platform evolution, new markets and regulatory updates.
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·
Ready to build your payment infrastructure ?
Talk to our payment architects about your markets, compliance scope and product vision. We help you choose the right path — from a discovery sprint to full-scale processor delivery.
- Free initial scoping call with a senior architect
- Discovery sprint option — scope & proposal in 2–4 weeks
- Intelligent configurator for stakeholder alignment
- Fixed-scope builds with milestone-based billing
- SLA-backed support after go-live
- 85+
- Platforms delivered
- 18
- Countries
- 12+
- Years in payments
