Kiwi.com is a global online travel agency operating across highly fragmented payment markets, regions, and regulatory environments. Payments play a central role in Kiwi.com’s business model, spanning card payments, alternative payment methods, refunds, chargebacks, and complex settlement flows inherent to travel and deferred delivery.
As transaction volumes and operational complexity increased, Kiwi.com recognized that payments could no longer be managed as a back-office function. The company required an infrastructure that would provide control, redundancy, and flexibility at global scale.
“For us, IXOPAY was a key enabler of our multi-acquiring strategy. It gave us the flexibility to route transactions more intelligently, test providers more effectively, and build a payment setup that is both resilient and optimized.”
Eliska Hruba
Senior Fintech Specialist, Kiwi
9 Payment Adapters
6 Payment Methods Supported
Challenges
Fragility exposed during COVID-19: The COVID-19 pandemic placed extraordinary strain on travel payments, particularly around refunds, reconciliation, cash flow, and acquirer relationships. Existing setups proved inflexible during periods of disruption, highlighting the risks of provider dependency.
Limited control with single-gateway models: Kiwi.com found that relying on a single payment gateway constrained its ability to manage risk, rebalance traffic, and adapt to acquirer-specific requirements, including reserves, risk assessments, and operational constraints.
Operational complexity of multi-acquiring: While a multi-acquirer strategy was clearly necessary, managing multiple acquirers in parallel significantly increased technical and operational complexity. Without orchestration, routing logic, testing, and optimization would have placed an unsustainable burden on engineering teams.
Global payment fragmentation: Kiwi.com operates across regions with widely varying payment cultures, regulations, and risk profiles. Supporting this diversity required an agnostic infrastructure capable of adapting to the market, payment method, and provider.
“As our payment setup became more complex, we needed a solution that gave us more control without adding more strain to our internal teams. IXOPAY gave us the orchestration layer we needed to support a true multi-acquiring strategy and manage payments in a much more scalable way.”
Eliska Hruba
Senior Fintech Specialist, Kiwi
Solution: Payment Orchestration with IXOPAY
Kiwi.com implemented IXOPAY as a live payment orchestration layer within its broader payment architecture to support a scalable, provider-agnostic, multi-acquirer strategy.
Key elements of the solution included:
Multi-acquirer orchestration: IXOPAY enabled Kiwi.com to connect and operate multiple acquirers simultaneously, allowing traffic to be distributed, tested, and rebalanced based on performance and operational needs.
Resilience and redundancy: Orchestration provided fallback and continuity at each critical step of the payment flow, reducing dependency on individual providers and supporting uninterrupted processing during provider issues.
Operational control without engineering overload: Routing, testing, and optimization logic could be managed by payment specialists through the orchestration layer, avoiding the need for engineers to build and maintain complex custom integrations.
Support for alternative payment methods: Kiwi.com used orchestration to avoid reliance on single providers for alternative payment methods, distributing risk and maintaining continuity across regions.
Agnostic, layered architecture: IXOPAY functioned as one layer within a broader, provider-neutral payment stack, enabling Kiwi.com to evolve its acquiring portfolio over time without repeated re-engineering.
“One of the biggest advantages of working with IXOPAY was being able to simplify complexity. Behind the scenes, we could build a more sophisticated payment setup, while still delivering a smooth, reliable experience for customers.”
Eliska Hruba
Senior Fintech Specialist, Kiwi
Results & Impact
Improved payment resilience: Kiwi.com gained the ability to maintain payment operations during provider outages or changes by rerouting traffic across acquirers, reducing operational risk in a global environment.
Greater control and transparency: Payments shifted from a provider-led model to an internally controlled, data-driven function, giving Kiwi.com greater visibility into performance and the ability to make informed optimization decisions.
Scalable optimization framework: With orchestration in place, Kiwi.com could test acquirers, routing strategies, and payment methods using real transaction data rather than relying on provider claims or static configurations.
Foundation for future optimization: Once core payment flows were stabilized and resilient, Kiwi.com was able to focus on further initiatives, including checkout experience improvements and selective expansion of alternative payment methods.
“For us, IXOPAY was a key enabler of our multi-acquiring strategy. It gave us the flexibility to route transactions more intelligently, test providers more effectively, and build a payment setup that is both resilient and optimized.”
Eliska Hruba
Senior Fintech Specialist, Kiwi
Why IXOPAY
For Kiwi.com, IXOPAY provided more than transaction routing. It delivered a payment orchestration platform that enabled control, flexibility, and resilience across a complex global payment environment.
By supporting a multi-acquirer strategy without lock-in, IXOPAY helped Kiwi.com operate payments as a strategic capability—balancing performance, risk, and customer experience as travel payments continue to evolve.