CMSPI is an independent, data powered, global consultancy advising merchants on how to improve the productivity of their payments arrangements by reducing costs, increasing sales and implementing innovative solutions. For hundreds of clients across the globe, our insights help improve performance and create positive change.

Our ultimate goal? Supporting a more innovative and productive payments ecosystem.

We help our clients save millions of euros every year. Here is an overview of our core services.

1.Card Services: CMSPI will holistically review your card arrangements, making sure each element of your supply chain is working for your unique business requirements.

Obtaining full visibility of your card arrangements is a complex and time-consuming task for any merchant. With so many facets to consider – card acquiring relationships, scheme fees, acceptance rates, PSP and fraud management to name just a few – it’s difficult for merchants to know where to spend internal resources.

Optimising interchange fees (while important) is often the primary focus of card payment professionals, leaving many other important aspects neglected. CMSPI will holistically review your card arrangements, making sure each element of your supply chain is working for your unique business requirements. Our analysts confidentially benchmark each component against our extensive client base, which gives you peace of mind your arrangements are optimised.

Areas of our card services:

Card aquiring
Interchange optimisation
PSP/Gateway Solution
Terminal Provision
APMs
Fraud Screening

2. Ecommerce Services: Merchants that maximise approvals, while minimising fraud, can increase their sales and gain an advantage over their competitors.

1 in 5 declined transactions is made by a genuine customer with sufficient means to pay: a “false decline”. When these customers are declined, over 50% will take their business to a competitor.

Many merchants believe that these poor approval rates are caused by their own internal set up, and that their suppliers are unable to help reduce false declines. This is rarely the case.

Using our unique proprietary software and vast pools of data, CMSPI can independently benchmark your current approval and fraud rates to highlight areas for improvement in your supply chain. By engaging with your suppliers, we can support you to fully realise these potential benefits – ensuring your sales are maximised and your customers have a positive experience.

Areas of our Ecommerce services:

Approval rates
Chargebacks & fraud
Retry strategy
Supplier comparisons
Supply chain engagement
Decline code analysis

3. FX & International Services: Additional income streams are becoming increasingly important to merchants of all sizes. Merchants who optimise their FX arrangements will make a substantial impact on their bottom line.

Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC, also known as cardholder preferred currency), multi-currency pricing (MCP) and tax-free shopping (TFS) have long been profitable sources of additional income for merchants. With a continued trend in increasing international spend – now is the time for merchants to optimise their arrangements and make a substantial impact on their bottom line.

With more facets to consider than ever before, these additional revenue streams are becoming an overwhelming and often-neglected area of the payments industry, with many merchants leaving long-standing, legacy arrangements in place without regular review. With international spending on the rise, merchants are processing greater volumes than ever before and as a result, should be benefiting from more competitive DCC, TFS and MCP arrangements. Now is the perfect time to engage with the experts at CMSPI and make sure your business reaps the rewards.

Areas of our FX & International Services:

MCP & DCC
Tax-free shopping
Local vs cross-border acquiring

4. Advocacy & Insights: Advocating the interests of merchants is at the heart of everything we do.

Our economics and advocacy department plays a key role in CMSPI’s extensive work within the payments industry. While a large part of the work we do is partnering directly with merchants, we also work independently within the wider payments market to advocate for fairer regulation and encourage a healthy payments landscape.

Our dedicated economics team supports merchants and other merchant advocates by providing expert knowledge in a wide range of environments, including: litigation support; economic analysis and commentary; business case guidance; and in-depth industry reports.

Areas of our Advocacy & Insights: