The Future of Orchestration in Payments: BR-DGE at Fintech Meetup 2025

Payment orchestration is becoming increasingly popular in the rapidly evolving financial ecosystem that we find ourselves in today. Here, Thomas Gillan, CEO of BR-DGE, a UK-based payment orchestration platform give his insight into the role of orchestration in enabling benefits for both businesses and consumers.

Orchestration and its value proposition

As Gillan advises, orchestration is about optimization. Takes care of seamless payment processes with minimum number of clicks for consumers while allowing merchants to make most of every single transaction. This dual approach helps improve authorization rates, boosts conversion rates, and optimizes the payment flow for revenue generation.

“The key is making sure every pound, dollar, or euro that comes over your platform is captured the first time of asking,” says Gillan. Whether that means having better authorization methods, better at preventing fraud, or smarter methods of routing transactions, optimization is a core part of effective payment orchestration.

Merchant Challenges and Product Capabilities

But what I believe is something very powerful is orchestration ability to solve a number of merchant pain points. This is an exciting opportunity for software providers who can offer the solutions to meet the challenge. But Gillan says it is important to outline a real strategy, because the temptation to solve all problems at once can prove overwhelming.

BR-DGE’s modular and interoperable approach enables businesses to integrate individual services into their infrastructure first and then scale out. This strategy provides instant value to merchants while also allowing for smooth scaling.

The Transition to a Multi-Acquirer Approach

Historically, payment acquirers had full custodial ownership of their customer transactions. The introduction of orchestration broke this single-acquirer model and enabled the implementation of multi-acquirer strategies in which businesses could dynamically route transactions based on performance and cost-effectiveness.

Meaning that optimization should not just be about cost, but rather driving better outcomes, according to Gillan. We’ve built a strong partner network because we’ve offered our partners access to the payment flows they are best-built to acquire.” Using multiple acquirers increases the chances of approval, reduces the failures of transactions, and increases the overall quality.

Optimizing Payment Journeys with Smart Technology

Orchestration allows merchants to dynamically and continuously optimize their payment processes at multiple places during the transaction flow. It can be on authorization rates, fraud prevention or new payment methods; no matter your focus businesses can optimize their strategy to their unique necessities.

Take network tokenization, which has proven to be a revolutionary technology in e-commerce because it has enhanced security while also optimizing the customer journey. BR-DGE has built on this technology as a standalone, modular service to enable merchants to better secure their transactions without compromising their existing flow.

Payment Orchestration Partner: Their Role

According to Gillan, technology providers need to act as genuine partners by providing support, guidance, and constructive feedback to businesses navigating the complexities of payment infrastructure. “Payments are the lifeblood of an organization,” he says, and they require strong support and reliable technology in order to maximize value.

Orchestration: Data, Security, and Personalization

In the next three to five years, orchestration is poised for considerable scale, and effective decision-making driven by data will be pivotal to its success. Gillan points out that, as companies collect more and more data, they will be able to sharpen their optimization strategies and become more efficient.

Security and tokenization will remain a top priority, which means payment transactions will remain safe but provide consumers with a frictionless experience. And personalization is going to change the checkout experience. The future of payment flows will be centered around the individual consumer and their preferred methods of payment, where their favorite payment types and loyalty programs will be seamlessly brought into the transaction process.

Payments as a Value Driver

In the context of fintech events and trends, Gillan identifies a forcible shift in the perception of payments. Payments are no longer perceived as just an operational necessity; they are a value driver. This improved personalization and security will increase customer satisfaction and lead to a long-term reputation for loyalty.

As orchestration progresses, businesses that embrace its potential will be better positioned to streamline their payment processes, maximize revenue, and offer better experiences for consumers, around the globe.