Merchant Acquiring Technology
Technology for acquiring businesses: merchant boarding, underwriting workflows, pricing, settlement and risk monitoring.
- ClientCheckout · wallet
- APIIdempotency key
- Identity & KYCVerified
- Risk & complianceRules passed
- Payment gatewayAuthorised → captured
- LedgerDouble-entry posted
- SettlementBank rail · T+1
Journal entry · balanced
| Account | Debit | Credit |
|---|---|---|
| Customer funds | 120.00 | — |
| Merchant payable | — | 118.20 |
| Fee revenue | — | 1.80 |
Division
Service area
Payments Infrastructure
Engagement
Project · Team · Managed
Overview
Acquirers and their partners need systems to board and underwrite merchants, configure pricing, process and settle transactions, monitor merchant risk and manage chargebacks. We build acquiring technology — merchant management, underwriting workflows, pricing engines, settlement and risk monitoring — integrated with processing platforms, for licensed acquirers and payment facilitators.
Common use cases
- Merchant boardingDigital merchant applications and underwriting.
- Merchant risk monitoringOngoing monitoring of transaction patterns.
- Pricing managementComplex merchant pricing plans.
- Acquirer modernisationReplacing legacy merchant management systems.
Quick answers
Merchant Acquiring Technology at a glance
The essentials in brief. Every project is scoped individually — ask us for specifics.
- What is merchant acquiring technology?
- Technology for acquiring businesses: merchant boarding, underwriting workflows, pricing, settlement and risk monitoring.
- Who is it for?
- Typically neobanks, payment companies, lenders, wealth platforms and financial institutions building or modernising customer-facing and back-office systems.
- What does Shivacha provide?
- Merchant management
- Underwriting workflows
- Pricing engine
- Risk monitoring
- Chargeback management
- Settlement & statements
- Which technologies are used?
- ISO 8583, PCI DSS, Double-Entry Ledgers, Go (Golang), Java, Apache Kafka — chosen to fit your stack and constraints.
- How does the process work?
- Flow mapping → Provider strategy → Core build → Reconciliation & settlement → Certification & launch.
- What affects the cost?
- Banking, card, payment and KYC partners to integrate
- Ledger and reconciliation complexity
- Number of currencies, countries and payment rails
- Compliance, reporting and audit requirements
- Mobile, web and back-office scope
- Availability and disaster-recovery targets
- How long does it take?
- A regulated-market MVP usually takes 4–7 months including partner integrations; extensions to an existing platform can ship in weeks.
- How do I get started?
- Share a short brief in the form below, book a 30-minute call or message us on WhatsApp. A senior engineer replies within one business day; NDA on request.
Capabilities
What we deliver
Merchant management
Merchant hierarchies, contracts and configuration.
Underwriting workflows
Data collection, scoring and approvals.
Pricing engine
Interchange-plus, tiered and custom pricing.
Risk monitoring
Rules and analytics on merchant activity.
Chargeback management
Dispute workflows and ratios tracking.
Settlement & statements
Merchant funding and reporting.
Architecture
Engineered right from day one
The layers we typically design for payments infrastructure, adapted to your stack and partners.
- Idempotency everywhereEvery mutating API and webhook handler is safe to retry.
- PCI scope reductionTokenisation and hosted fields keep card data out of most systems.
- Provider redundancyFailover routing reduces the impact of provider outages.
- Exact accountingMinor units, currency precision and fee attribution handled consistently.
Delivery
How an engagement runs
- 1
Flow mapping
Payment methods, markets, merchant types and every state a payment can be in.
- 2
Provider strategy
Which acquirers, PSPs and rails, and how to route between them.
- 3
Core build
Payment state machine, ledger, idempotent APIs and webhooks.
- 4
Reconciliation & settlement
Automated matching against provider reports and bank statements.
- 5
Certification & launch
Provider certification support, load testing and staged rollout.
Security
Security built into delivery
Controls we apply by default on this kind of work — not a separate phase at the end.
Ledger integrity
Double-entry, immutable journals and daily reconciliation against partners.
Idempotent money movement
Every payment operation safe to retry, with no double-spend.
Access control
Maker-checker approvals, least privilege and full audit logging.
Data protection
Encryption in transit and at rest, tokenised card data and PCI-aware architecture.
Technology
Tools we use for this
Products
Start from a platform
Shivacha Merchant Payments
Merchant onboarding, omnichannel acceptance and settlement in one platform.
Learn moreShivacha Payment Gateway
A white-label payment gateway with hosted checkout, tokenisation and multi-acquirer connectivity.
Learn moreShivacha Payment Orchestration
Route every payment to the best provider — and fail over automatically.
Learn moreRelated services
Often combined with
Payment Platform Development
End-to-end payment platforms: acceptance, processing, orchestration, settlement, reconciliation and payouts at scale.
Learn morePayment Gateway Development
Custom payment gateways with hosted checkout, tokenisation, multi-acquirer connectivity, 3DS and merchant APIs.
Learn morePayment Processing Systems
Payment processing engines for authorisation, capture, refunds, disputes and fees — accurate, idempotent and observable.
Learn moreDedicated team
Payments Engineering Team
Specialists in gateways, processing, orchestration, settlement and payouts.
Work & insights
Related thinking
Ledger-first architecture for a partner-bank neobank
How we structure a neobank so that balances always reconcile with the sponsor bank and partners can be added or replaced.
Learn moreStablecoin settlement layer for a card-accepting payment platform
A hybrid design that lets merchants accept cards as usual while optionally settling in stablecoins.
Learn moreFinTech app development cost: scoping payments, banking and lending products
FinTech budgets are shaped less by screens than by partners, ledgers, compliance and reliability. A guide to the drivers behind a neobank, wallet, payments or lending build.
Learn moreFAQ
Frequently asked questions
Do you act as an acquirer?
No. We build technology for licensed acquirers, payment facilitators and their partners.
Can underwriting be automated?
Much of it can — data collection, verification and scoring — with manual review for higher-risk merchants.
Do you process payments directly?
No. Shivacha builds the software; payments are processed by licensed acquirers, PSPs and banks that you contract with. Our platforms integrate and orchestrate those providers.
Can you help reduce payment failures?
Yes, through smart routing, retries, network tokenisation, local payment methods and analytics on decline reasons — all subject to your provider agreements.
Next step
Discuss Your FinTech Product.
Tell us about your merchant acquiring technology requirements — goals, timeline and constraints. We will reply with questions, an approach and next steps.
- Senior engineer reads every enquiry
- Reply within one business day
- NDA on request
Your details are used only to reply to this enquiry.