Introducing CX Pay- a New Online Payment Gateway for T&T

There’s a new payment gateway in town and it flew all the way from the Dutch Caribbean— Curaçao to be exact. Now available in Trinidad & Tobago from Scotiabank and CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank, the company CX Pay, has been operating in some Caribbean islands for quite some time and have set their sights on the now fast-growing T&T E-Commerce market. Talks are ongoing with a third bank to come on board so obviously they’re hoping we also set our ‘sites’ on them… get it? ‘sites’ yeah groan, me too, never mind!

I first learnt about CX Pay in November 2019 from a sponsored Facebook post on my newsfeed, which of course piqued my interest. You know me, I hear the word ‘payment gateway’ and my adrenaline (and possibly oxytocin!) starts pumping. I checked their website and saw T&T was supported country via two local banks as I mentioned, and I immediately contacted them to learn more directly. I’ve since been communicating with David Levy Maduro, one of the Founder’s and the COO, in an effort to get all the facts so I can present CX Pay as a brand new payment option for 2020.

Below is a comprehensive write-up about CX Pay, and where relevant, I’ve included direct quotes from Mr. Levy Maduro or referenced his answers to questions I posed to him for this article.

Founded in 2014, CX Pay is a relatively young company. Their focus on payment solutions and e-commerce innovation is geared towards simplifying collection of funds for business owners through different payment methods. CX Pay offers solutions for retail storefronts, payment processing for both online and mobile devices, electronic invoicing, digital wallets as well as gift cards and digital vouchers.

CX Pay offers multiple payment methods to assist merchants across the world with online payments through their extensive network of international acquiring partners that make it possible to accept recurring payments in over 200 countries and territories, including Europe, the US, Canada, Latin America and here in the Caribbean.

This is what I like to see, real humans (as opposed to robots, mannequins and wax figures), behind a company. And as you can see they are very credentialed. Notwithstanding the principals, I’m particularly impressed with their Advisor, a former President of Mastercard for Latin America and Caribbean.

Their solution is a bona fide gateway via a merchant account, (a bank account that allows businesses to accept payments by debit or credit cards), where CX Pay is the processor. They are not an aggregator, intermediary or facilitator like PayPal; the parties involved are you, your bank and CX Pay only. This means funds are settled daily, going straight to your bank account with no extra steps. It also means real-time access to transactions to verify payments, see payment error codes etc.

In addition to offering a proprietary shopping cart application, CX Pay’s payment gateway can already be integrated with over 150 shopping cart applications, including WordPress/Woo Commerce and Magento platforms which are the two most popular shopping carts in Trinidad & Tobago.

There are initial (one-time) set-up fees to sign-up for the solution, payable to both the bank and CX Pay, and there are processing fees which are standard in the industry, at a fixed percentage of the order value. There are additional fixed monthly ‘support’ fees also payable to both the bank and CX Pay. Don’t get scared about the fees just yet, they’re actually not scary.

I’ve been told that both banks have different fee structures. One is not charging monthly fee or per transaction, while the other is charging per transaction. However both charge a sign-up fee. So apparently it’s in their hands and really subject to the banks’ relationship with the merchant, perhaps negotiable. To summarize, fees comprise:

1. an initial sign-up fee
2. monthly fee
3. processing fee
4. transaction fee

The use of any, all, or a combination of all 3 depends on the bank. Every scenario will include the processing and transaction fee. The processing fee is a percentage of the order, and the transaction fee is a fixed amount per order regardless of its value.

I asked Mr. Levy Maduro about these fees payable to as it was not what we’re accustomed to here in T&T. He said “…we used to have this, but then we preferred to be in charge of our own paying and collection. Mind you, this will give you a good insight as to who charges how much. We do NOT get a kick back from the bank and they are not receiving any incentive from us as well.”

The process starts with CX Pay, on their site CX PAY GLOBAL, and for us, the merchant goes and completes the sign-up via the dedicated ‘Signup Caribbean’ page. Once the submission is received, CX Pay moves forward with the bank, which then follows up with the merchant to start the on-boarding process.

On the bank side, I’ve contacted only CIBC, and was told this, quote: “In order to provide any e-commerce solution, the merchant must first be a client of CIBC FirstCaribbean holding the required type of account that will facilitate the transactions. The cost of the solution provided by CIBC FirstCaribbean will be dependent on the overall relationship held with us.”

I would expect more local merchants to have accounts with Scotiabank than CIBC as they haven’t been around as long. Obviously if you don’t have an account you’ll have to open one, which some may consider a headache with the lengthy compliance paperwork and requirements of the FIU. On the bright side, I mentioned that talks were ongoing to add a third bank. While Mr. Maduro could not disclose which bank, hopefully it’s one of the remaining mainstream banks like Republic, FCB, or RBC as opposed to the less popular JMMB, for obvious reasons (apologies to JMMB).

Mr. Levy Maduro has indicated that there are ongoing integrations at the moment but no live online stores have launched as yet. Of course, they’ve just started to market to Trinidad & Tobago so I don’t expect many at this time, and they have to start somewhere.

CX Pay has been growing annually in the number of active merchants and signups since it started processing in January 2016, and offering ePayment solutions to merchants in the Dutch Caribbean followed by service to merchants on the neighboring islands like Barbados, Jamaica, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and the BVI, and of course most recently Trinidad & Tobago.

They are a trusted partner of banks, fin-techs, governments and e-commerce businesses in Curaçao and across the Caribbean and has established a strong network of acquiring partners throughout the Caribbean, supported by its compatibility with 160+ processors.

CX Pay has furthermore engaged in a partnership with Mastercard for the Pan Caribbean market, whereby CX Pay will be working closely with Mastercard to bring more eCommerce solutions to the Caribbean and Central America and help increase “local” transactional volume that is now flowing cross border to other providers in markets outside the region.

CX Pay has a direct solution for accounting software or private integration with CRM systems. For the most used online stores like WooCommerce and Magento they developed plugins for a seamless and safe integration between the merchant’s website and their Gateway, covering over 53% of the E-Commerce websites.

CX Pay joins the other payment solutions available in Trinidad & Tobago and has widened the choices for our local merchants. Only time will tell if whether they’ll able to make inroads into the market here, and solidify their place as formidable competitor and major player. They’ve also proved my words right as I predicted that other players will come and not necessarily from T&T.