A closed-loop payments platform, engineered for chargeback resilience, live in five weeks.
A B2B operator running a closed-loop payments platform across a contracted merchant network in a regulated vertical. Built end to end. Live with active transaction volume.
5 weeks
Scope to live
$182K
Net profit, first three weeks
live
33
Contracted merchants
onboarded
SAQ A-EP
PCI tier, iframe tokenisation
Leg 01 · Scope
From an earlier toolchain to a written scope, in seventy two hours.
A B2B operator running a closed-loop payments platform across a contracted merchant network in a regulated vertical. Earlier iterations had reached the limits of what the existing infrastructure could carry. Checkout conversion was leaking. Chargeback exposure sat at the architecture layer rather than the policy layer. Money handling spanned multiple data types in the database. Dispute evidence was assembled by hand after the fact. The lever was specific: build the closed-loop platform the operator's network needed, with conversion engineered at every step and dispute evidence generated automatically as a byproduct of the transaction itself.
Within seventy two hours of the scoping call, the written scope landed. Three architectural commitments. Dispute evidence would be generated automatically on every transaction, not assembled after a chargeback landed. Money would be handled in integer cents end to end, never as floats. Sessions would be opaque, with no identifying parameters in any URL the customer could see. What was scoped out at this stage: native mobile applications, SMS notification infrastructure, Apple Pay at consumer checkout, a consumer-facing portal beyond the static MVP, and merchant analytics beyond core reporting — each held back to keep the critical path clean.
Leg 02 · Build
Built like financial infrastructure should be built.
Every component was selected with one priority above all others. Conversion engineered into the checkout, dispute evidence engineered into the transaction itself. The stack is named, not implied.
Pattern
Session-based checkout, Stripe pattern
Sessions are opaque, with thirty-minute TTL. No identifying parameters in any URL the customer can see. The checkout was rebuilt around the friction points that were costing conversion. Single-page completion. Inline validation. Server-side callbacks that complete the merchant-side order even if the customer closes the tab. Mobile-first rendering, with the iOS Safari issues that had been blocking the previous flow patched at the CSS layer.
Node and Express on TypeScript. Drizzle ORM. PostgreSQL 16 with NUMERIC precision on every monetary column. Redis 7 for session and cache. All money is handled in integer cents end to end, with a database migration that backed up float columns alongside cents columns during cutover for safe rollback. ACID compliance on every write. Foreign-key constraints enforced at the database layer.
Every transaction generates the evidence package as a byproduct of the flow itself. Three-box pre-flight confirmation. Email confirmation timestamp. Descriptor acknowledgment. AVS and CVV match from the gateway. Issuance timestamp. Settlement timestamp. IP, email, and card-fingerprint logging for downstream dispute review. Velocity controls at the BIN-and-last-four level. The dispute response that previously took a merchant a day now runs from a dataset assembled at transaction time.
6-point evidenceAVS/CVVVelocity capsAuto-assembly
Compliance
PCI SAQ A-EP, audit-ready by design
Card data never touches the platform. Tokenisation runs inside an iframe served by the gateway. The platform stores tokens, never PANs. Financial transaction data and product data live on separate rails with a one-way wall between them. Auditable by inspection. Secrets via environment variables, never in version control. Branch protection on main. Two hundred and sixty seven tests across unit, integration, and end-to-end on every commit.
PANs stored. Card data never touches the platform. Tokenisation runs inside a gateway-hosted iframe. The platform handles tokens only.
Verified by architecture · PCI SAQ A-EP
Leg 03 · Launch
Live in the operator’s business, every day.
The platform went live with the contracted merchant network on the schedule the scope committed to. Consumer checkout running at the production domain. Merchant dashboard live with transaction visibility, settlement status, and payout tracking. Admin panel live for merchant onboarding, KYB review, and credential issuance. The first live transaction settled cleanly through the gateway and reconciled against the dashboard the same day.
Merchant onboarding ran in parallel to the technical build — contract issuance via DocuSeal, KYB submitted through MidDesk, credentials delivered automatically on approval. The integration package was designed to take a merchant from approved to processing in under an hour, and several merchants did exactly that. One platform now holds the checkout flow, the merchant relationship, the settlement pipeline, and the audit record. Every transaction generates the dispute-evidence package automatically. Every settlement runs against the same money-in-cents engine. Every merchant sees the same numbers.
Outcome
A platform live and compounding.
$182K
Net profit, first three weeks live
Live · Post-launch
33
Contracted merchants onboarded and
processing
Network · Growing
0
PANs stored on platform
PCI · SAQ A-EP
The closed-loop platform replaced an earlier toolchain, manual onboarding, and the absence of a unified financial view. The operator now sees the network, the transactions, and the settlement pipeline in one place. Every record traces back to the immutable transaction log. Every payout reconciles against the gateway. The kind of operational view that is normally only available to operators with established payments infrastructure, available from the first live transaction.
The unexpected outcome. The platform changed how the operator runs the network. Decisions that were previously made against fragments are now made against the whole. Merchant approvals, settlement timing, fee structure, network composition. All of these now sit on top of one source of truth. That is a difference in kind, not degree.
What’s next
Continuing to compound.
The platform is in active maintenance and extension. New merchants are onboarded against the same automated pipeline. The settlement engine is being extended to support additional payout cadences. The compliance posture is kept current as the network grows.
Roadmap items currently under active scope: SMS notification infrastructure for redemption codes, Apple Pay at consumer checkout, a consumer-facing portal for transaction history, a merchant analytics layer covering session-level conversion. Each is being scoped against a specific operating lever, not built on speculation. The platform that did not exist a quarter ago is the operator’s core infrastructure now — the conversation is about what to build alongside it.
Speak with the team.
Engagements are scoped privately. The team replies within one business day.
A closed-loop payments platform, engineered for chargeback resilience, live in five weeks.
A B2B operator running a closed-loop payments platform across a contracted merchant network in a regulated vertical. Built end to end. Live with active transaction volume.
5 weeks
Scope to live
$182K
Net profit, first three weeks live
33
Contracted merchants onboarded
SAQ A-EP
PCI tier, iframe tokenisation
Leg 01 · Scope
From an earlier toolchain to a written scope, in seventy two hours.
A B2B operator running a closed-loop payments platform across a contracted merchant network in a regulated vertical. Earlier iterations had reached the limits of what the existing infrastructure could carry. Checkout conversion was leaking. Chargeback exposure sat at the architecture layer rather than the policy layer. Money handling spanned multiple data types in the database. Dispute evidence was assembled by hand. The lever was specific: build the closed-loop platform the operator's network needed, with conversion engineered at every step and dispute evidence generated automatically as a byproduct of the transaction itself.
Within seventy two hours of scoping, the written scope landed. Three architectural commitments. Dispute evidence generated automatically on every transaction. Money handled in integer cents end to end, never as floats. Opaque sessions, with no identifying parameters in any URL. What was scoped out at this stage: native mobile applications, SMS notification infrastructure, Apple Pay at consumer checkout, a consumer-facing portal beyond the static MVP, merchant analytics beyond core reporting — each held back to keep the critical path clean.
Leg 02 · Build
Built like financial infrastructure should be built.
Every component was selected with one priority above all others. Conversion engineered into the checkout, dispute evidence engineered into the transaction itself. The stack is named, not implied.
Pattern
Session-based checkout, Stripe pattern
Sessions are opaque, with thirty-minute TTL. No identifying parameters in any URL the customer can see. The checkout was rebuilt around the friction points that were costing conversion. Single-page completion. Inline validation. Server-side callbacks complete the merchant-side order even if the customer closes the tab. Mobile-first rendering.
Node and Express on TypeScript. Drizzle ORM. PostgreSQL 16 with NUMERIC precision on every monetary column. Redis 7 for session and cache. All money is handled in integer cents end to end. ACID compliance on every write. Foreign-key constraints enforced at the database layer.
Every transaction generates the evidence package as a byproduct of the flow itself. Three-box pre-flight confirmation. Email confirmation timestamp. Descriptor acknowledgment. AVS and CVV match from the gateway. Issuance timestamp. Settlement timestamp. Velocity controls at the BIN-and-last-four level.
6-point evidenceAVS/CVVVelocity capsAuto-assembly
Compliance
PCI SAQ A-EP, audit-ready by design
Card data never touches the platform. Tokenisation runs inside an iframe served by the gateway. The platform stores tokens, never PANs. Financial transaction data and product data live on separate rails with a one-way wall between them. Two hundred and sixty seven tests across unit, integration, and end-to-end on every commit.
PANs stored. Card data never touches the platform. Tokenisation runs inside a gateway-hosted iframe. The platform handles tokens only.
Verified by architecture · PCI SAQ A-EP
Leg 03 · Launch
Live in the operator’s business, every day.
The platform went live with the contracted merchant network on the schedule the scope committed to. Consumer checkout running at the production domain. Merchant dashboard live with transaction visibility, settlement status, and payout tracking. Admin panel live for onboarding, KYB review, and credential issuance. The first live transaction settled cleanly through the gateway and reconciled against the dashboard the same day.
Merchant onboarding ran in parallel to the technical build — contract issuance via DocuSeal, KYB through MidDesk, credentials delivered automatically on approval. Several merchants went from approved to processing in under an hour. One platform now holds the checkout flow, the merchant relationship, the settlement pipeline, and the audit record. Every transaction generates the dispute-evidence package automatically. Every merchant sees the same numbers.
Outcome
A platform live and compounding.
$182K
Net profit, first three weeks live
Live · Post-launch
33
Contracted merchants onboarded and processing
Network · Growing
0
PANs stored on platform
PCI · SAQ A-EP
The closed-loop platform replaced an earlier toolchain, manual onboarding, and the absence of a unified financial view. The operator now sees the network, the transactions, and the settlement pipeline in one place. Every record traces back to the immutable transaction log.
The unexpected outcome. The platform changed how the operator runs the network. Decisions that were previously made against fragments are now made against the whole. Merchant approvals, settlement timing, fee structure, network composition. All of these now sit on top of one source of truth.
What’s next
Continuing to compound.
The platform is in active maintenance and extension. New merchants are onboarded against the same automated pipeline. The settlement engine is being extended to support additional payout cadences. The compliance posture is kept current as the network grows.
Roadmap items currently under active scope: SMS notification infrastructure for redemption codes, Apple Pay at consumer checkout, a consumer-facing portal for transaction history, a merchant analytics layer covering session-level conversion. Each is being scoped against a specific operating lever, not built on speculation. The platform that did not exist a quarter ago is the operator’s core infrastructure now — the conversation is about what to build alongside it.
Speak with the team.
Engagements are scoped privately. The team replies within one business day.
