onboarding

Onboarding is where a customer either starts taking payments or gives up. Traditionally it meant a separate application to an acquirer, paper or PDF, with a wait for underwriting. Built into a software product it becomes a short flow at the moment the customer needs it: company number, owner details, what they sell, where to pay them, done.

For a platform the design of this flow is one of the four levers that decide whether existing customers move. If a customer who already runs the platform's software can switch their payments on in minutes without re-entering what the platform already knows, moving costs them nothing. If they have to leave the product, fill in a form and wait, most will not. The regulated acquiring partner sets what has to be collected and does the verification; the platform owns the experience and can pre-fill, stage and resume it. Synapto designs this flow with the platform and builds the payment products around it; the platform's own developer integrates it.

What to watch: the drop-off point. Measure completion at each step. The usual losses are the UBO step, the bank account step and any step that asks for a document upload. Every one of those can be moved later or made optional until volume requires it.