Focus on Inovio: Giving gaming businesses the upper hand in payment processing

April 7, 2023 8:00 AM
Photo: Shutterstock
  • John G. Brokopp, CDC Gaming Reports
April 7, 2023 8:00 AM
  • John G. Brokopp, CDC Gaming Reports

Efficient payment processing is a vital component of virtually every aspect of gaming operations, yet the goal of maximizing its potential frequently follows a long and winding road of ineffectiveness and underachievement.

Inovio Payments, LLC, eliminates the convoluted and risky method of payment processing with a revolutionary payments gateway that provides seamless integration and global scalability.

Conal Cunningham, General Manager at the California-based company, observed that gaming merchants tend to be among the most sophisticated and smart of all online merchants — and that they know what they’re doing and what to look for.

“They are precisely the type of people with whom we like to work and help succeed,” Cunningham said. “Our system maximizes the value coming out of transactions while at the same time managing the risk associated with them.”

Payment platform efficiency
Inovio’s fraud prevention revolves around what Cunningham refers to as “surgical strategy,” or the art of identifying patterns of irrational nefarious activity and providing ways to automatically block it.

With the power of Inovio, casino operators have the ability to monitor transactions in real time, thereby gaining valuable insight on customer trends.

Inovio’s combined suite of technologies and features, according to Cunningham, help the merchant from the very beginning of the first encounter with a customer all the way through the life cycle of the transaction.

The process creates a long-standing relationship with the customer, making sure, Cunningham maintains, that they are protected while at the same time maximizing revenue to create a capability “unmatched in the industry.”

He said that because Inovio has world-wide connections, the company can provide a merchant with a lower cost to get on board and a lower cost for maintenance of the system, all while keeping tech debt to a minimum.

He noted that with other payment systems, there may be a feature or something of value that has to be sacrificed so that something can be done quickly. Inovio enables a merchant to get payments done fast without sacrificing a single thing.

Customer safety
Inovio’s chargeback mitigation tool instantly matches chargebacks to their original transaction, making it much easier to resolve disputes.

“The simple idea is to stop a transaction before it turns into a chargeback,” Cunningham said. “We have the capabilities set up so that when a customer reaches out to their bank or references the number of the credit card charge, we have specific details about the transaction to help them realize it is a place where they have transacted.”

However, not all disputes are that simple. There’s a second layer that is sometimes a case of an unauthorized person using the card, and the real owner of the card wants to go ahead and file a dispute. Cunningham said that Inovio has agreements with networks that work with card issuers all over the world.

“We can provide a refund on that transaction and get it immediately resolved so that the customer doesn’t have to go through a dispute with their bank or through the card networks,” he said. “This enables the merchant to avoid the expensive fines and fees that go along with this chargeback as well as keep them out of any tracking programs or penalty systems.”

Processing and regulatory ease
As for recurring billing solutions, Inovio simplifies payments for repeat customers and eases management for subscription and membership services.

“The last thing you want is some kind of problem to come up after you’ve gone through all the work of bringing a customer in,” he said. “The customer is excited, they are happy, and then all of a sudden there is some kind of technical issue where you can no longer bill their card on a recurring basis.”

Inovio’s long-standing track record with recurring billing situations enables the company to know exactly how to bill each type of card. For instance, the company is experienced, according to Cunningham, with helping a merchant who is being presented with a prepaid card that does not support recurring billing.

“We have the ability to handle cases when a card has insufficient funds or insufficient credit for a particular transaction by billing the card a day later or strategically waiting for payment to maximize the time that card can be billed and the approval rate for the recurring billing is as tight as possible.”

He gave the example of sophisticated merchants who have operations in multiple parts of the world — making sure those transactions are for their customers who are in one region and being transacted in the same region. This, Cunningham points out, maximizes the approval rates, keeps the merchant fees down, and the payment processing costs go down.

Another perk, he mentioned, is that the process keeps the merchant in line with all the compliance and regulatory guidelines of each region.

Inovio’s suite of services also includes a sophisticated transaction routing system, which Cunningham said “is at the heart of the life cycle of the transaction because we’re touching it in real time with an eye toward a longer life cycle.”

“Our merchants are very excited about Inovio’s technologies, especially the rate at which we can get a credit card approved,” he said. “We constantly have people telling us that their previous platform did not do as well and are ecstatic over the rates of approval of the cards we are processing.”