The Total Economic Impact™ Of Adyen

Incremental Profit From Improved Authorization Rate

Evidence and data. Interviewees explained that the combination of the key modules within Adyen Uplift — Optimize, Authenticate, and Tokenize — helped improve authorization rates by optimizing how transactions were routed and submitted to issuers. By dynamically applying intelligent payment routing, network tokenization, and intelligent retry capabilities based on issuer behavior and payment data, Adyen Uplift delivered higher authorization rates for the interviewees’ organizations. The head of payments at a software company explained, “With Adyen, we can decide whether to use network tokens or PANs [primary account numbers], and we can route debit transactions through local debit networks.” Interviewees mentioned that this helped their organizations successfully authorize a greater share of legitimate payment attempts and therefore recover revenue that might otherwise have been lost.

Interviewees said that combined with Adyen’s local acquiring capabilities, which allowed transactions to be processed closer to issuers and through preferred local networks, these capabilities increased the likelihood that legitimate transactions would be approved. The head of payments also said that Adyen consistently delivered the highest authorization rates compared to their other PSPs. For instance, they saw an authorization rate of approximately 75% on USD card transactions with Adyen compared to 67% for the next-best-performing PSP. The interviewee went on to explain that Adyen demonstrated “a good 8% difference” in their organization’s largest transaction segment and similarly outperformed other PSPs across the additional currencies processed by the business, enabling a greater share of customer purchases to be successfully completed.

Interviewees also underlined the importance of authorization improvements as a key business driver. The managing director at Accenture, an Adyen partner, stated, “[Our clients] saw significant revenue uplift, as well as improvements in both authorization rate and conversion [after implementing Adyen].”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization processes $2 billion in annual payment volume.

• Credit cards, debit cards, and digital wallets account for 70% of the total payment volume.

• Online transactions represent 70% of total payment volume, while in-store transactions account for the remaining 30%.

• Before adopting Adyen, the composite organization had an average online authorization rate of 80% and an average in-store authorization rate of 97%. With Adyen Uplift, authorization rates improve by 3% and 0.5%, respectively.

• The composite organization has a profit margin of 11%.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Annual payment volume and transaction growth.

• Channel and payment method mix.

• Baseline online and in-store authorization rates.

• Geographic and acquiring footprint.

• Adyen adoption and transaction allocation.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $3.7 million.

Avoided Chargeback Fraud

Evidence and data. Interviewees explained that Adyen Protect, an AI-driven risk platform, helped reduce fraud losses by identifying and blocking fraudulent transactions before authorization through its integrated risk management capabilities. Interviewees said that by combining machine learning, real-time transaction analysis, device intelligence, behavioral signals, and networkwide payment data, Adyen more effectively distinguished legitimate shoppers from fraudulent actors compared to the legacy fraud solutions their organizations had in place. This not only reduced fraud losses and chargeback-related costs, but also helped improve conversion by reducing false positives, ensuring that more legitimate customers were able to complete their purchases successfully.

The vice president at a consumer electronics company shared that moving from a rules-based fraud solution to Adyen Protect improved fraud prevention capabilities. Unlike the previous solution, which relied solely on internal data, Adyen leveraged networkwide insights and a richer set of signals to identify fraudulent activity more effectively. As a result, the interviewee’s organization could strike a balance between fraud prevention and customer experience, reducing the number of legitimate transactions that were incorrectly declined while continuing to block fraudulent activity.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization processes 40 million transactions annually. The average order value of these transactions is $50.

• Prior to implementing Adyen, the composite organization experiences a chargeback fraud rate of 1% on its online transactions and 0.025% on its in-store transactions.

• With every chargeback fraud, it incurs losses based on the margin of that sale, as well as an average of $30 in processing and internal costs (e.g. investigation) per chargeback.

• With Adyen Protect, it reduces chargeback fraud rates by 50%.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• Industry fraud exposure.

• Existing fraud prevention maturity, including current fraud rule configurations.

• Transaction volumes and geographic footprint.

• Customer and payment method mix.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $4.6 million.

Improved Business Agility

Evidence and data. Several interviewees reported that through Adyen, the rollout of new payment capabilities, merchant accounts, and market expansion initiatives were simplified. The head of payments at a software company reported that previously, with their legacy PSPs, integrating a new merchant account required submitting applications and waiting for providers to complete setup activities. With Adyen, new accounts were set up and running within hours; previously, it took a week. Furthermore, multiple payment-related functions set up within one platform on Adyen reduced the need to establish and manage multiple contracts with different vendors and maintain integrations with separate platforms.

Similarly, other interviewees mentioned that expanding payment operations into new countries and channels had become easier and less time-consuming with Adyen. The cofounder of a software company further explained that Adyen’s support for local payment methods helped merchants enter new markets more effectively, stating, “Supporting a local payment method enabled a merchant to expand into Switzerland in a sustainable way and accelerate growth in that market.” The managing director at Adyen’s partner firm Accenture reinforced this, saying that for a particular retailer they worked with, “Adyen provided the fastest route to market, allowing it to expand into new markets without incurring significant IT costs.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization continuously launches new payment-related initiatives, including entering new markets, adding payment methods, creating merchant accounts, and opening new physical stores. On average, the composite undertakes 36 projects annually.

• Prior to Adyen, each project required approximately 80 hours of developer effort to configure payment capabilities and complete implementation activities. With Adyen’s unified platform and tailored support, the effort required of the developers per initiative decreases to 16 hours, an 80% reduction.

• A 70% productivity capture rate is applied to reflect that only a portion of developer time saved is redirected toward value-generating work.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The number of payment or market expansion initiatives

• Complexity and the number of PSPs

• Organizational adoption and governance maturity

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $256,000.

Payment Operations Productivity Gains

Evidence and data. Interviewees reported significant time savings within payment operations teams after adopting Adyen’s unified platform to centralize payment operations across markets, channels, and payment methods. Prior to implementing Adyen, interviewees’ teams managed multiple PSP relationships, each with different reporting formats, settlement schedules, and reconciliation processes. The more PSPs they worked with globally, the more time was spent on reconciliation. As transaction volumes grew, this complexity increased the amount of manual effort required to reconcile payments, investigate exceptions, and close financial records.

By providing a single platform with centralized payment processing, reporting, and settlement capabilities, Adyen enabled interviewees’ organizations to streamline payment operations globally and reduce their reliance on multiple PSPs. By consolidating payment activity onto Adyen, they were able to manage payment operations more efficiently and reduce manual workloads and operational overhead, all while gaining greater visibility into payment activity across the business.

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite organization worked with 10 legacy PSPs prior to working with Adyen, with the goal of consolidating these into a smaller number of strategic relationships. As it transitions more of its payment volume to Adyen, it gradually reduces the number of PSPs by about two to three each year.

• With the reduction of each PSP, the composite organization saves 48 hours per month (8 hours each for six FTEs globally) on reconciliation activities.

Risks. The scale of this benefit may vary from organization to organization based on:

• The complexity of payment flows and number of legacy PSPs

• The goals of the organization regarding PSP relationships

• The level of reconciliation automation already in place.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of $189,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Benefits that provide value for the interviewees’ organization but are not quantified for this study include:

• Reduced total cost of payments. Beyond improving authorization rates, interviewees highlighted the value of Adyen’s local banking licenses and acquiring capabilities for reducing cross-border processing fees, lowering interchange and scheme costs in certain markets, and minimizing foreign exchange expenses. By enabling transactions to be processed through issuer-preferred domestic routes, local acquiring further reduced costs associated with failed payments and transaction retries. As a result, some interviewees said their organizations made significant reductions to their total cost of payments.
  While interviewees cited cost savings as a meaningful benefit, Forrester did not quantify these savings as part of the financial analysis as payment cost reduction can vary based on factors like transaction volume, payment method mix, geographic footprint, card portfolio, issuer and network relationships, interchange and scheme fee structures, and existing PSP contracts and commercial terms. As a result, the impact of Adyen Uplift on payment costs is highly organization-specific and was not modeled as a standalone quantified benefit in this study.

• Improved payments data visibility. Having payment, risk, and customer transaction data available through a unified platform helped the interviewees’ organizations’ teams identify performance issues more quickly, optimize payment flows, and make more informed business decisions. The VP at a consumer electronics company shared: “With previous providers, payments were simply expected to work in the background. Now, payments are part of our optimization toolkit, driving much more discussion around performance, fraud management, and customer experience.”

• Improved customer experience. Interviewees also shared that Adyen helped reduce friction during the payment process by providing a fast, reliable checkout experience in stores and enabling new local payment methods, especially in markets with a strong preference for specific noncard local payment methods. The vice president from a consumer electronics company shared that Adyen helped them quickly expand their payment method options for customers by five times. They noted that Adyen helped minimize the risk of cart abandonment, whereas previously customers might have abandoned their checkout due to long checkout queues in stores, or if they find their preferred payment method wasn’t available.

Flexibility

Interviewees described several areas where Adyen created additional value beyond the benefits quantified in this study, enabling their organizations to identify new opportunities, continuously optimize payment performance, and make more informed business decisions over time, including:

• Reliability for rapid business growth. The director of product operating in fintech highlighted that Adyen’s ability to process high transaction volumes reliably was key to their business growth. Even with new mergers and acquisitions, new merchants, and organic sales growth, they could rapidly scale payment processing volumes without undertaking major payment infrastructure changes or onboarding additional local PSPs. This reliability allowed the interviewees’ organizations to pursue growth opportunities more quickly while minimizing operational disruption.

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).