Australian-based mx51 provides white-label services to banks and finance institutions, allowing them to offer in-store, phone, and online payment capabilities to their customers.
mx51 evaluated a range of alternatives for a new data platform, including an on-premises Postgres database instance.
"When we were first established in 2019, our small team of staff relied on little more than a series of relational databases to store data generated by our microservices," said mx51 chief product officer Steven Hadley. "However, as data volumes grew, it became clear that a different approach would be required."
"At the end of the day, it became clear that Snowflake was the best fit for our requirements," explained Hadley. "We were particularly impressed with its ability to scale and to integrate with our front-end tools."
The project began with an initial proof-of-concept involving the extraction data from multiple Postgres databases and providing answers to relatively simple user queries.
Once this approach was shown to be viable, more data and users were added.
"Snowflake now underpins our entire business intelligence efforts," said Hadley "It is used by everyone from our product team to finance and senior management who use it 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."
In-house analytics and BI aren't the only areas that have benefited.
The mx51 support team uses Snowflake to help resolve merchant issues such as problems with their terminal – data from the machine can be quickly accessed and analysed to determine the best course of action.
"It also allows us to provide proactive support for our customer's customers," said Hadley. "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. This sets us apart from other payment firms on the market."
Plans include using Snowflake to allow more detailed analysis and reporting of transactions for merchants, who will be provided with a portal that delivers data relating to their terminals, with the ability to drill down to individual transactions.
"This will allow merchants to do things such as altering their trading patterns or augmenting their product ranges to improve sales and revenues," he said.
"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," said Hadley. "It will also enable us to gain insights and use BI tools in ways that previously would not have been possible."
