Adyen

Adyen was founded in 2006. Its current CEO and CTO are Pieter van der Does and Arnout Schuijff respectively. Adyen provides integrated payment management, risk management, and financial management services for multiple industries such as digital, logistics, retail, and catering.

Adyen is headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and has about 2,000 employees worldwide.

Specific business

Based on gateway and acquiring services, transaction fees are collected

Adyen has access to more than 250 payment methods worldwide, such as card organizations, issuing banks, wallets, etc.

Payment requires a payment license. Adyen plays two roles in payment depending on whether it is licensed: gateway and acquirer. Based on these two roles, two modes of acquiring are derived.

Model 1: As an acquiring institution

Adyen applied for a payment license overseas and obtained a payment license. Currently, it covers Europe, Canada, Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and Hong Kong.

In this model, Adyen handles both information flow and capital flow. After the capital is cleared by the issuing bank to Adyen, Adyen settles it to the merchant.

In this model, the fee charged is the settlement fee, which is a certain percentage of each transaction amount. It includes the settlement costs of the card organization, the issuing bank and other related financial institutions. Therefore, different payment methods have different settlement rates, such as 3% for Alipay and UnionPay payment and 3.95% for American Express payment.

Model 2: As a payment gateway

In areas where there is no acquiring license, Adyen "rents" the acquiring license of a local bank or a financial institution with relevant qualifications in the form of a BIN sponsorship license. For example, Adyen "rents" the license of Wells Fargo Bank in the United States and the license of Bonsucesso Bank in Brazil.

In this model, Adyen only handles the information flow and does not touch the funds. The fund settlement is completed by the cooperating acquiring institution.

In this model, the fee charged is the transaction processing fee, which is a fixed fee extracted from each transaction. It is 0.1 euros per transaction in Europe and Africa and 0.12 US dollars per transaction in North America, Latin America and Asia.

Adyen Acquiring refers to the region where it conducts business as an acquiring institution, and Partner Acquiring refers to completing the acquiring business with the help of other institutions, while Adyen acts as a payment gateway.

Providing hardware terminal equipment, Adyen commissions third-party suppliers to manufacture hardware terminal equipment (POS machines), and then sells them to merchants to obtain income and profits.

It is easy to understand. Selling POS machines, earning the difference in hardware sales and payment fees.

Offline POS transactions account for a small proportion, mainly relying on online transactions.

Other services

Adyen's other services mainly include foreign exchange service fees and refund fees. In 2019, the card issuance function was launched. From the perspective of payment, Adyen has a banking license in Europe. It can help merchants issue prepaid cards and play the role of a card issuer in related transactions, thereby improving the speed of fund settlement, while increasing the competitiveness and pricing space of Adyen's acquiring services.

In summary, Adyen relies on its banking license in Europe to issue prepaid cards for merchants, acting as both an issuing bank and an acquiring bank.