Hemlata Narasimhan, European President A secure and efficient payment experience is crucial for any successful business in today’s competitive landscape, and this is why payments are the beating heart of modern commerce.
Elavon was recently named Merchant Acquirer of the Year by the Merchant Payment Ecosystem and is a renowned leader in payment solutions for airlines, retail, hospitality, and the emerging sectors of mass transit and EV charging.
“We’re one of Europe’s largest acquirers and operate globally,” says Hemlata Narasimhan, President of Elavon Europe.
“Payments needs are ubiquitous – whether you’re a one-person entrepreneur, running a small business or a large corporate enterprise, you have payment needs across all customer types. What changes is the complexity.”
“As you expand into new markets, there’s often new regulations, new currencies, new languages. Finding a payments partner able to navigate that, help and serve you consistently is a challenge we see – and proudly overcome,” Hemlata adds.
“We provide customers of all sizes with tailored tools and solutions to accept payments and manage complexity at the backend to make the experience smooth, safe, secure, and easy.”
Elavon supports more than two million businesses across 36 countries, processing in more than 130 currencies. Its award-winning customer service is available in 13 European languages with technical support around the clock.
Underpinning the firm’s foundations is its proprietary acquiring network – Axis.
The platform boasts exceptional reliability, with 99% uninterrupted uptime - making it one of the most dependable payment solutions in the industry.
It’s robust, scalable, and fast - seamlessly connecting merchants with network partners and issuing banks to move money across the entire, complex payments ecosystem.
Elavon prioritises security and fraud management to support businesses facing constantly changing customer expectations, emerging risks and threats, and evolving regulations.
The Card and Payments Awards named Elavon the Best Service to Business last year for supporting customers through the second Payment Services Directive.
PSD2, as the directive came to be better known, brought in changes impacting every business and consumer in the EU and EEA. It also led to the development of Elavon’s renowned Transaction Risk Analysis solution which helps businesses maximise online sales while minimising risk using exemptions to the regulations, as appropriate.
“European regulators have been forward thinking in their approach, from PSD2 and Strong Customer Authentication, to what we’re seeing now in the UK from the Financial Conduct Authority with the consumer duty requirements,” says Hemlata.
“They’re keeping pace with and constantly trying to help customers. And businesses, rightly, look to us, their payment partners, to help with regulatory requirements and meeting their customers’ needs.”
We provide customers of all sizes with tailored tools and solutions to accept payments and manage complexity at the backend to make the experience smooth, safe, secure, and easy
Elavon’s payment solutions can integrate with a business’s existing infrastructure. Through one contract, even cross-border businesses can leverage Elavon’s APIs and application toolkits as well as those of Elavon partners. Disparate systems can be brought together to streamline payment processing, simplify reporting, and serve complex business needs.
As an example, Elavon is the preferred payments partner for Marriott in Europe, bringing a consistent brand standard to customer experience and reporting across the franchise.
To improve the group’s payment solutions for international travelers, Elavon implemented dynamic currency conversion (DCC). DCC allows customers to pay in their native currency to know upfront what they’ll pay when it debits their account. Fewer surprises later reduce chargebacks while also providing hotels with a steady income stream through a revenue share on the exchange rate.
