Bridging the Payment Divide: Why Omnichannel Orchestration Is the Future of Commerce

In today’s hyperconnected retail world, consumers expect frictionless experiences—tap a card in a store, scan a QR code, or shop online. But for most merchants and PSPs, online and offline payments are still in separate ecosystems, creating disconnected reporting, redundant integrations, and untapped growth opportunities.

Omnichannel payment orchestration promises the potential to unite these silos into one brilliant layer-one that aggregates reporting, improves transaction success, optimizes compliance, and drives customer experience across all touchpoints.

To discover how this evolution is shaping up, we interviewed Noel Moukheiber, General Manager at MontyPay, and Andrew Riabchuk , Co-founder and CTO at Akurateco, about the real challenges and opportunities of omnichannel orchestration.

The Business View: Why Merchants Demand Unified Control

Merchants today want more than just payments—they want insight, control, and speed. Here’s why real-time data and unified access are changing the game for retailers.

As Noel Moukheiber of MontyPay eloquently puts it:

“From a merchant’s point of view, unifying both commerce types is crucial. Businesses want a 360-degree view of the consumer, online and offline. They need a single portal, one place to onboard, manage risk rules, gain visibility, and get fast reconciliation.

Right now, most PSPs have two different systems for CP and CNP, which creates a lot of friction. Merchants have to reconcile across two dashboards and manually match settlements—it’s time-consuming and prone to error.

With omnichannel orchestration, everything becomes real-time. You know exactly where you’re standing at any given moment. You can troubleshoot issues faster, identify failed transactions, and take action immediately.”

The Technical Challenge: Aligning Two Worlds

Bringing card-present (CP) and card-not-present (CNP) together is not just an API issue—it’s a question of deep infrastructure alignment and compliance. Andrew explains what’s behind the hood.

“From the technical side, the problem lies in the fundamental differences between CP and CNP environments. CP requires hardware terminals, certification like PCI PTS, and integration with local acquirers, each of which may have different protocols.

Conversely, CNP revolves around APIs, 3DS authentication, tokenization, and advanced fraud prevention.

Most orchestration providers stop at CNP because it’s easier to scale. But we faced the challenge of integrating CP flows into the orchestration layer. That means enabling merchants to route POS transactions like they route online—through a single, rules-based engine.”

Before Orchestration: Fragmentation and Friction

What did the payment world look like before orchestration? A patchwork of disconnected systems and frustrated merchants. Noel reflects on the operational pain points and the turning point.

“Before implementing orchestration, managing transactions across multiple acquirers and geographies required separate systems, making it harder to unify the online and in-store payment experience. Merchants had to onboard twice, reconcile from different dashboards, and manually merge data. It slowed everything down.

The idea of orchestration came from this pain. We didn’t want to build another legacy system; we wanted to plug into something fast, modern, and modular. That’s when we partnered with Akurateco.”

The Benefits of Real-Time Data and Control

With orchestration, the merchant experience transforms: real-time insights, smarter routing, and frictionless fraud protection—all from a single dashboard.

Noel highlights the impact of a flexible orchestration layer on both operations and merchant experience, noting: 

“Akurateco’s white-label platform gave us the flexibility we needed. We got real-time reporting, smart routing, cascading, fraud scoring, and a single access point.

Now, we can onboard merchants faster, monitor real-time transactions, and offer advanced features without building them ourselves.

For our merchants, it means better approval rates, faster settlement, and lower chargebacks.”

Why Orchestration Is a Strategic Advantage

Orchestration becomes a key differentiator in a competitive payments landscape. Here’s how MontyPay used it to lead in its local market.

“In Lebanon, we compete with legacy providers like traditional banks using basic payment gateways. They’re big, but slow. We needed to move faster and support local acquirers directly.

Akurateco gave us a customizable solution that we could brand and take to market quickly. We didn’t have to wait 18 months for development—we launched in weeks. That gave us a substantial competitive edge,” says Noel

The Future: From Payment to Platform

Payment orchestration is no longer just about routing transactions—it’s becoming the backbone of modern commerce, enabling loyalty programs, fraud prevention, and personalized experiences across all channels. As Andrew explains, this shift marks a fundamental rethinking of what orchestration platforms can—and should—deliver:

“What we’re building goes beyond payments. Think loyalty integration, AI-driven fraud detection, and customer identity recognition across touchpoints.

A unified orchestration engine can trigger personalized offers, analyze behavioral patterns, and connect CRM with payment behavior.

Imagine a customer walks into a store, and we know they recently abandoned a cart online—we can act on that in real time.”

Unlocking New Business Models

Beyond payments, orchestration unlocks new fintech products: SME lending, loyalty,and embedded finance. Noel shares the potential.

“Once we have unified data across online and offline, we can build lending models, offer loyalty points, or even embedded credit products.

For example, if a small retailer consistently processes $10K per month, we can offer working capital based on that volume or give cashback across channels.

That’s the vision—go from payment processor to business enabler.”

What’s Holding PSPs Back?

If the technology is so powerful, why haven’t more PSPs adopted it? The answer lies in technical complexity and mindset. Our experts weigh in.

Andrew says:

“The barrier is complexity—POS integration takes time, effort, and certification. Many PSPs are focused only on quick wins in CNP.

However, the long-term value is in unifying both. That’s why we invested in building support for card-present and creating a fully modular orchestration engine.”

Noel adds:

“Some PSPs think it’s too expensive or time-consuming. But they don’t realize orchestration platforms like Akurateco can be white-labeled, scaled gradually, and adapted to local needs.

It’s not about reinventing the wheel but choosing the right partner and stacking the blocks strategically.”

Looking Ahead: Orchestration as the Core Strategy

What’s next for payment orchestration? It won’t just connect systems—it will drive strategy, personalization, and innovation.

“We see orchestration becoming the control center for all commerce. It’s no longer about routing payments—it’s about unlocking insights, powering loyalty, and optimizing operations in real time.

Think of it as the OS of modern commerce,” says Andrew.

Noel continues this thought:

“Agree. The PSPs that embrace orchestration now will be the ones defining the next fintech era. It’s not a cost—it’s a strategy.”

Conclusion

Omnichannel orchestration isn’t a luxury—it’s becoming the default for ambitious merchants and forward-looking PSPs. The convergence of card-present and card-not-present flows under one intelligent layer paves the way for smarter operations, personalized experiences, and new monetization models.

Those who embrace orchestration now will improve payments, redefine customer journeys, and unlock the next wave of fintech innovation.