Propel speed to market, product integrity with solution testing

Iliad Solutions Ltd., established as an authorization and switching system, went on to become a market-leading solution testing provider for financial institutions worldwide, the company stated. Iliad's three founders saw a gap in the quality of payment testing systems and need for expanded market reach in payments testing solutions.

Anthony Walton, CEO of Iliad Solutions, said the primary objective was to get payment systems developed by third-party service providers to market quickly and safely. To this end, the company works with customers who are serious about testing and want to help their partners and technical teams integrate new payment systems with optimal integrity and quality uncompromised by time constraints.

The growing company is supported by over 50 team members in the United Kingdom, Ireland and the United States, Walton noted, and has invested in new technologies such as native ISO 20022 real-time payments; open APIs; open banking and a back catalog of 150 industry standard interfaces. Iliad works with leading acquiring and open banking brands, he added, as it continues its global expansion.

Payment-centric testing

"We are payment people who came into testing, rather than testers looking for a niche in payments," Walton said. "Our success is created by people who understand payments and the challenges of implementing payment systems. It's all about money being moved around; it has to be very safe and work 100 percent of the time."   Walton further stated that Iliad Solutions has been building, implementing and supporting major payment solutions for more than 25 years. This experience, he pointed out, has fueled the company's development of its comprehensive, resilient testing platform (t3), a globally trusted solution designed to take the risk out of payment testing.

By automating payment testing, Iliad helps clients reduce project costs; simulate real-world transaction paths with multiple legs, interfaces and keys (including tokenization); test business flows as opposed to simulating individual pieces of the transaction; enable teams to work rapidly, with more control and greater visibility; forensically analyze test results and decrease risk through end-to-end testing in new deployments—benefits that help protect brands from high-profile failures, Walton noted.

Organizations using Iliad save time, money, and increase the confidence in their core systems, Walton explained, citing the following product and service offerings:

• t3 Switch: A flagship enterprise-grade, browser-based, digital payments testing platform that automates testing and simulates any endpoint within a single solution.
• t3 Portal: An optional orchestrated front-end GUI that can be used for project-based testing, such as pre-certifications/certification for member banks, issuers and acquirers.
• t3 Cert: A portal solution specifically designed to simplify and accelerate Level3 EMV merchant terminal onboarding and certification, while guiding merchants and merchant acquirers through the entire EMV certification process.

Partner-centric business model

Walton further noted that Iliad works with a variety of partners, resellers and sales channels, including PSPs, ISOs and other payments enterprises. "PSP and emerging payment enterprises generally have a subset of a full-stop banks capability, which means they can move in a much more agile way," Walton said. "Our technology lends itself to being able to test that subset and also how it interacts with all the touch points in the payment system, which is quicker and easier than it would have been using traditional tools."

Looking ahead to the near future, Walton expects to focus even more on real time payments, specifically around ISO 20022 and adjacent opportunities arising from open banking initiatives that leverage open API technologies. In addition, he said, the company will continue to expand its suite of affordable, on-demand subscription services that enable clients with smaller operating budgets to consume Iliad products as needed without having to spend millions of dollars.

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