Settlement Speed
Expansion Enabled
A Middle East based refurbished electronics marketplace selling mobiles, laptops, Apple devices, and accessories. The platform specialises in certified refurbished Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, and accessories, and operates with a stringent seller onboarding process. Not every seller can list on the marketplace. Sellers are vetted, and products are graded on a transparent condition scale before being made available to customers.
The merchant has built a strong presence across the Middle East and Africa since inception. All inventory is centralised and shipped from the Middle East, with local fulfilment partners supporting last-mile delivery in each destination market. Backed by a well-funded venture capital round, the merchant is now focused on expanding its footprint into high-growth Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific markets.
As the merchant prepared to expand beyond its core MENA and South Africa markets, several checkout and payments challenges emerged that were limiting conversion and slowing cash flow.
International card transactions routed into Southeast Asia and Hong Kong were seeing lower authorisation rates than the merchant needed to scale confidently. Every failed transaction in a market the team was trying to enter meant lost revenue and a lost chance to build customer trust at the moment of first purchase.
Southeast Asia is a region where local payment methods dominate checkout preference. Shoppers in Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Hong Kong routinely choose e-wallets, bank transfers, and regional card schemes over international credit cards. Without these options, the merchant was asking local buyers to pay in a way that felt unfamiliar, which directly suppressed conversion.
Running card transactions through an overseas acquirer typically results in higher decline rates, cross-border fees, and a poorer customer experience. The merchant needed local acquiring in markets like Hong Kong to lift approval rates and reduce cost per transaction.
The merchant was running on T+7 settlement. For a venture-backed, inventory-heavy business shipping refurbished devices out of the UAE, waiting a week to receive collected funds created working capital pressure and slowed the pace at which the team could reinvest into inventory and growth.
Tazapay provided the merchant with an integrated checkout and collections stack designed to unlock new markets without requiring local entities, and to fix the conversion and settlement gaps the team had been facing.
Tazapay powers checkout across the merchant's expansion markets with a single integration that surfaces the right local payment methods for each buyer. Shoppers in Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia are offered the payment options they already use every day, which directly improves conversion compared to a card-only experience.
For card transactions, Tazapay routes payments through local acquiring rails in each destination market. This lifts authorisation rates, reduces cross-border decline patterns, and lowers overall cost per transaction. For a market like Hong Kong, where the merchant had previously seen weaker success rates, local acquiring improved conversion rates significantly.
Collection and Settlement in the Merchant's Preferred Currency. Funds collected across all expansion markets are settled back to the merchant in their local currency of choice, with a clear and transparent FX rate applied at the time of settlement. The merchant receives a consolidated settlement in one currency, regardless of how many markets are processing that week.
Tazapay brought settlement timelines down from T+7 to T+1 / T+2 across active corridors. For a VC-backed business that reinvests capital into inventory and growth, faster access to collected funds is directly tied to how quickly the company can scale.
A customer in Hong Kong, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, or Indonesia browses the merchant's marketplace and adds a refurbished Apple device to the cart.
At checkout, Tazapay surfaces the right mix of local payment methods and cards for that market, based on buyer geography.
Card transactions are routed through Tazapay's local acquiring rails in the destination market to maximise authorisation rates.
Funds are collected locally in each market and consolidated for settlement.
Tazapay settles the collected funds to the merchant in AED, typically on a T+1 or T+2 cycle, ready to be deployed back into inventory and operations.
The merchant has expanded across Southeast Asia and Asia-Pacific markets, enabling a broader local payment method stack across Thailand, Indonesia, and Hong Kong, where APMs drive the majority of e-commerce checkout volume. This has allowed the business to validate demand, deepen market penetration, and support seamless cross-border growth across the region.
Tazapay's modular infrastructure means additional payment methods and corridors can be turned on without rebuilding the integration, giving the merchant a flexible foundation to scale into new markets as demand matures.
