Tebex is an all-in-one monetization platform for gamers, owned by leading gaming company Overwolf, which processes over $200 million annually across 20,000+ creators. By 2023, their single PSP approach had become a bottleneck. Head of Payment and Compliance Liam Wiltshire built a custom multi-PSP orchestration system with Evervault, handling card data security, 3DS, and Network Tokens.
Gaming is global - our yardstick is that any gamer wanting to buy content from us should be able to. Achieving that with a singular PSP, or without the maximum level of flexibility in terms of routing, retries, custom data-led decisioning, etc, is almost impossible. Working with Evervault has enabled us to maintain in-house orchestration and routing using data available only to us, to maximize successful payments for our partners and our customers.— Liam Wiltshire, Head of Payments and Compliance, Tebex
The challenge: Outgrowing a single PSP strategy
Tebex's reliance on a single PSP created three critical issues:
- Limited global reach: Tebex needed to add regional payment methods that are essential for gaming microtransactions, such as PIX in Brazil and UPI in India.
- No redundancy: With millions of transactions flowing through one PSP, any downtime or service degradation directly impacts creators' ability to earn and users' ability to purchase.
- Missed optimization opportunities: Different PSPs excel in different scenarios. Some perform better for high-value transactions, others for specific regions or payment methods. With only one PSP, Tebex had no way to optimize routing for maximum authorization rates.
Evaluation: Why Payment Orchestrators fell short
Liam's team initially turned to payment orchestrators, expecting them to solve their multi-PSP needs. The concept seemed perfect: one integration, multiple PSPs, intelligent routing. But reality proved more complex.
Two fundamental limitations emerged as dealbreakers:
Payment method gaps
Gaming companies' revenue models are built on micro-transactions, and local payment methods reduce friction for spontaneous in-game purchases. Tebex found that no payment orchestrator could support all the payment methods they needed. Additionally, Tebex would be completely reliant on the payment orchestrator to enable any local payment method before it could use it.
Routing inflexibility
As a highly sophisticated payment team, Tebex had advanced custom routing logic they wanted to implement:
- Creator Level: Working with thousands of content creators, Tebex wanted to route traffic by content creator or even game level. The payment orchestrators they evaluated wouldn't support different routing logic for different entities, i.e., specific logic for Game A versus Game B versus Game C.
- Payment Method Level: Tebex wanted granular routing at the payment method level. For example, they worked with two payment partners who supported a digital wallet in Poland, where one had better authorization rates for high-value transactions, and the other performed better for low-value authorizations.
Building their orchestration layer
Rather than compromise on their requirements, Tebex decided to develop its payment orchestration system in-house. This approach has given them complete control over routing logic and payment method support. It did, however, introduce a new challenge: handling the complex security and compliance requirements of collecting and processing payment card data.
Why Evervault?
Tebex chose to partner with Evervault for several key reasons:
- Technical expertise: Deep understanding of payment security and compliance requirements.
- Partnership approach: Willingness to work closely with Tebex's team as a true partner.
- Comprehensive platform: Could provide multiple payment infrastructure components in one solution.
- Flexibility: Supported Tebex's custom routing and user experience requirements.
Tebex built a comprehensive payments infrastructure completely decoupled from their PSPs using multiple Evervault products (UI components, 3DS, and Network Token solutions), helping them maintain a consistent checkout experience for all their users.
Results: Multi-PSP success at scale
Today, Tebex operates a sophisticated payment infrastructure that includes:
- Multiple PSP relationships: Mix of large global processors and smaller regional specialists.
- Granular routing: Champion/challenger model operating at the BIN level.
- Consistent experience: Unified checkout flow regardless of backend PSP.
When asked what he values most about working with Evervault, Liam emphasizes the partnership approach:
Finally, the ability to get all of their pre-routing payment infrastructure from Evervault has provided significant operational advantages to Tebex:
- Simplified integration: Single API for multiple payment functions.
- Unified support: One point of contact for technical issues.
- Greater observability: All logs are unified and linked by a shared transaction ID, giving Tebex end-to-end visibility on every transaction journey.
By building their own payment orchestration layer, Tebex was able to optimize their payment routing, leading to an 8-10% increase in successful payments in multiple regions. This flexibility also allowed them to add three new local card acquirers, which boosted their regional payment capabilities and helped them better serve their global gaming audience.