An online payment gateway that seventy institutions run on
A tier-one Egyptian bank needed to offer online payment acceptance to universities, government entities, and corporates. Determinds designed and built the platform, and the team that built it supports and maintains it under a banking-grade service level.
- Client
- A tier-one Egyptian bank
- Sector
- Banking and payments
- Role
- Solution design, build, operations training, and support and maintenance under SLA
01 The challenge
Two market requirements that called for a custom platform
The bank serves institutions rather than retail merchants, and a large share of the people paying those institutions prefer to settle in cash. Both requirements call for more than a standard e-commerce gateway provides.
An institution collecting tuition or a government fee needs reference-based collection, bulk reconciliation, and a file its finance team can match directly against its own ledger. A large share of payers in this market also prefer to pay in cash, so the platform had to capture payments that begin online and are settled in branch, alongside card payments completed at checkout.
Pay-by-reference is the feature that made this platform succeed in this market.
02 What Determinds built
The five components of the gateway
Online checkout embedded in each institution’s own flow
Card-not-present acceptance that sits inside the institution’s own collection journey, so every payer completes the payment in a setting they recognize.
Pay-by-reference with cash settlement in branch
The payer initiates online, receives a reference code, and settles in cash at any branch. The reference reconciles automatically back to the originating institution, so the finance team sees one clean record whichever way the money arrived.
Institution onboarding and configuration tooling
The bank’s own operations team onboards and configures each new institution without engineering involvement. This tooling is how the platform grew to seventy institutions.
Reconciliation and settlement reporting
Reporting built for the finance teams who close the books, reducing manual error and the effort spent on matching.
An operations training program for the bank’s team
Determinds trained the bank’s team to run day-to-day operations, so the bank manages the platform with full independence and confidence.
03 Support today
Seventy institutions, one service level
The platform has been in production for years, supported and maintained under an active service level by the team that built it.
| Institutions live | Seventy, across universities, government entities, and corporates |
|---|---|
| Service level | 99.99% contracted uptime and 2-hour contracted resolution on critical incidents |
| Load-tested throughput | 2,000 transactions per second, approximately 100 times current peak production volume |
| Security validation | Penetration tested by the bank’s own information security team, and included in the three external security audits Determinds has passed |
| Regulatory | Delivered through one Central Bank of Egypt approval on a live payment platform |
| Support and change management | Change management, downtime management, and release reporting within the bank’s change control, with a named project manager as the escalation point |
04 What this means for your project
How this experience applies to your organization
For banks
Determinds builds and maintains payment infrastructure for major institutions, at multi-tenant scale and under strict service levels, including local mechanics such as pay-by-reference with cash settlement in branch.
For the public sector
Determinds deploys reference-based collection and reconciliation into environments with rigorous security review, including field operations where agents work from a phone.
For platform businesses
Determinds builds onboarding tooling for the client’s own operations team as standard, the approach that took this platform to seventy institutions.
For organizations replacing a vendor
Determinds takes over existing systems as well as building new ones, and our team works within your change control process from the first release.
05 Frequently asked
Questions about this engagement
Common questions from evaluators ahead of a technical session.
Can we speak to the client?
For a serious evaluation, and under a mutual non-disclosure agreement, Determinds will request a reference call with the client. The call takes an hour of the client’s time, so we arrange it once both sides are past the exploratory stage.
How long did it take to build?
Determinds typically delivers a first production release 8 weeks from kickoff and then expands iteratively, which is how this platform grew to seventy institutions over time.
Is the architecture available to review?
Yes, under a mutual non-disclosure agreement, usually in the second meeting. Determinds walks your technical evaluators through the real architecture and pipeline diagrams, which give the clearest view of how the platform is built.
Could this be deployed for another bank?
Yes, Determinds can bring the same capability to another bank. This platform was built for one institution’s requirements and environment, so for another bank we would build to your requirements or, if you want to launch merchant acquiring rather than institutional collection, discuss D-PAY, a separate product designed for that purpose.
Who supports the platform today?
Determinds supports and maintains the platform under an active service-level agreement, with change management, downtime management, and release reporting handled by our team and a named project manager as the escalation point. The bank’s own operations team runs day-to-day operations, including institution onboarding and configuration.
What is pay-by-reference, in one sentence?
A payer starts online, receives a reference code, and settles in cash at any branch, and the payment reconciles automatically back to the institution that issued the request, which is what makes the platform succeed in a market where many payers prefer cash.
Next
Request an architecture review under a mutual NDA
The session covers the architecture, the reconciliation path, and the service level under which our team supports the platform today.