PRODUCTS
Smart payment routing that maximizes approval rates
slikair's smart payment routing sends every transaction to the provider most likely to approve it. Rules, cascading retries and live performance data work together to lift acceptance and cut cost per transaction.
Rule-based routing
Route by BIN, country, currency, amount, card brand, customer segment or any combination.
Cascading retries
A declined transaction is automatically retried on the next best provider within milliseconds.
Load balancing
Split volume across providers by percentage to protect limits and negotiate better rates.
Performance-aware logic
Routing weights adapt to live approval rates, so degraded providers are bypassed automatically.
Boost acceptance rates
Increase the likelihood of successful transactions with advanced routing algorithms that direct payments to the most appropriate gateway.
Guard against provider downtime
Automatically redirect transactions to alternative gateways during outages, ensuring uninterrupted service and maintaining customer trust.
Optimize transaction costs
By routing transactions intelligently you minimize the fees and costs associated with each payment, maximizing margins without compromising service quality.
Smart payment routing transforms your payment processing experience
In the world of digital payments, efficiency and reliability are essential. slikair's smart payment routing automatically directs each transaction to the most suitable payment gateway based on the nature of the transaction, ensuring higher success rates and a smoother experience for your customers. With intelligent routing you get seamless, reliable and cost-effective transactions that drive your business forward.
How smart payment routing works, step by step
Every payment arrives with context: card, currency, country, amount and merchant category. slikair filters the provider set down to the acquirers that can actually process that payment, scores each one on live approval rate, latency and cost, and sends the transaction to the winner. If the answer is a recoverable decline, the payment cascades to the next best provider inside the same request. Nothing goes back to the customer, and every decision is recorded so you can see exactly which route each transaction took and why.
Routing is where approval rate is won or lost
Most operators lose revenue not to fraud but to declines that a different provider would have approved. A single gateway gives you one answer per transaction. Smart payment routing gives you the best answer available across your whole provider set, which is why routing and cascading changes are usually the fastest way to lift acceptance on traffic you already have.
Experience the power of smart payment routing
Sign up for a demo today and discover how routing can enhance your payment processing, optimize costs and improve transaction success rates.
HOW IT WORKS
Watch a transaction find its best route
Routing engine
~38 ms
Acquirer A
scoring…
Acquirer B
scoring…
Acquirer C
scoring…
Acquirer D
scoring…
Smart routing is one part of the slikair payment orchestration platform. Running several markets? Read how to accept payments as an online casino in multiple countries.
Smart payment routing FAQ
What is smart payment routing?
Smart payment routing is the logic that decides which acquirer or provider receives each transaction. Instead of sending everything to one gateway, slikair evaluates the eligible providers for that specific payment and sends it to the one most likely to approve it at the lowest cost.
How does smart payment routing increase approval rates?
Two things do most of the work. First, each transaction goes to the provider that performs best for that card type, country and currency rather than to a single default. Second, a recoverable decline is retried instantly on the next best provider. One slikair client measured a 23% increase in approval rates after moving to smart cascading and routing across Tier-1 European acquiring banks.
What is the difference between routing and cascading?
Routing chooses where a transaction goes the first time. Cascading is what happens after a decline, when the transaction is automatically retried on the next best provider in milliseconds, without sending the customer back to checkout. slikair does both in the same flow.
What data does slikair use to choose a route?
Currency, country, card brand, BIN, amount, merchant category and 3DS requirements decide which providers are eligible. Live approval rate, latency and cost then decide which of those eligible providers wins. Scores update continuously, so a provider that starts degrading is bypassed automatically.
Can we define our own routing rules?
Yes. You can route by BIN, country, currency, amount, card brand, customer segment or any combination, split volume across providers by percentage to protect limits, and keep your own commercial priorities in the logic. Performance-aware scoring then works inside the rules you set.
Does smart payment routing slow down checkout?
No. The routing decision is made in real time as part of the authorization, typically in under 40 milliseconds, and a cascade retry happens inside the same request. The customer sees one checkout.
What happens when a provider goes down?
Traffic is redirected to alternative providers automatically. Because routing weights follow live performance, an outage or a sudden drop in approvals pulls that provider out of rotation without anyone having to intervene, which is how slikair holds 99.99% availability.
How does routing reduce transaction costs?
Cost is one of the scoring inputs, so when two providers are likely to approve a payment, the cheaper one wins. Load balancing across providers also helps you hold volume commitments and negotiate better rates, and fewer failed retries means fewer wasted authorization attempts.
Is smart payment routing available for high-risk sectors?
Yes. slikair is built for iGaming, Forex and high-risk e-commerce, with established connectivity to acquiring banks across Europe, PCI-DSS Level 1 certification, and coverage of 200+ countries, 40+ currencies and 180+ payment methods.
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