Aussie fintech boosts analytics capabilities with Snowflake

Merchant payment platform fintech provider mx51 has chosen Snowflake to support its analytics and customer service activities.

Australian-based mx51 provides white-label services to banks and finance institutions, which allows them to offer in-store, phone and online payment opportunities to customers. Steven Hadley, Chief Product Officer at mx51, noted that when the company was first established in 2019, its staff relied on little more than a series of relational databases to store data generated by microservices. As data volumes grew, it became apparent that a different approach was required.

“Back then, a key driver for us was wanting to have a better ability to run queries. Prior to Snowflake, if you wanted to run queries across multiple databases there was no easy way for this to be done,” said Hadley.

The mx51 team began by evaluating a range of alternatives for a new data platform. Hosting an on-premise instance of a Postgres database was also considered; however, the management and maintenance overheads were deemed too high. “At the end of the day, it became clear that Snowflake was the best fit for our requirements. We were particularly impressed with its ability to scale and to integrate with our front-end tools,” said Hadley.

Deployment began with an initial proof of concept. This involved extracting data from a number of Postgres databases and providing answers to simple user queries. Once it was determined that the approach worked, additional data was added and user numbers quickly grew. Hadley said that Snowflake now underpins mx51’s entire business intelligence efforts, and is used by everyone to assist in strategic planning. “It allows queries to be quickly answered and provides a clear picture of what is going on within the payments infrastructures of our customers,” said Hadley.

Alongside providing in-house support for analytics and business intelligence activity, Snowflake is also used by the mx51 support team to resolve any merchant issues that might arise. For example, if a retailer is experiencing issues with a terminal, data from the machine can be assessed and analysed to determine the best resolution.

“It also allows us to provide proactive support for our customers’ customers. If a problem is identified that may have an impact on other merchants, our team can contact them and make them aware that a solution is being devised ahead of potential issues occurring,” said Hadley.

With growth in merchant and transaction numbers continuing to increase, Hadley said there will be more ways in which Snowflake can support the company in the future. The company will use Snowflake to support more detailed analysis and reporting of transactions for merchants, which will allow merchants to do things like alter their trading patterns or augment their product range to improve sales and revenue. This will be achieved by enhancing a merchant-facing portal that provides a data feed from installed terminals. The dashboard will give a holistic view of the merchant’s payment system, as well as providing the ability to drill down to see specific transactions.

“I’m confident we now have in place a data platform that will be able to grow and support us for many years to come. It will also enable us to gain insights and use BI tools in ways that previously would not have been possible,” said Hadley.

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