Paytron Launches and Scales Global Payments Platform Processing Millions of Dollars of Monthly Payments on AWS

Paytron, a financial services technology startup founded in 2020, offers a global payment processing platform automating online transactions, international transfers, invoices, accounts payables, and payroll. Using Paytron, accountants and other customers can simplify their job by streamlining workflow approvals and other key operations.

When Paytron was preparing to launch its platform, it needed reliable, scalable technology to help it deploy within seconds across various regions securely. “We couldn’t afford to hire a full-time IT team at the beginning, so we wanted to find the right cloud technology to help us scale quickly. We also needed to enhance security because we’re in a highly regulated industry,” says Jaco Veldsman, founder and chief technology officer at Paytron. The company also wanted to use serverless technology, which provides the ability to create and run applications without servers, to deploy its platform. “We see serverless as the model of the future. It provides agility and ease of deployment, both critical benefits to us as a startup,” Veldsman says.

After evaluating different cloud providers, Paytron chose to launch its global payment platform on Amazon Web Services (AWS). “I could navigate the AWS platform easily and was surprised by how quickly we got up and running on AWS,” says Veldsman.

Paytron leveraged AWS serverless technologies including AWS Lambda and Amazon DynamoDB, a database service that scales automatically to adjust for capacity and maintain performance. Paytron also relies on Amazon Cognito to provide a secure identity store that scales to millions of users, without needing to provision infrastructure. It uses Amazon SageMaker to build reports supporting regulatory compliance for customers, and Amazon Kinesis to collect and process payment data. “This helps us avoid spending a lot of time rewriting the system to control concurrency,” says Veldsman. In addition, the Paytron development team uses the AWS Cloud Development Kit (AWS CDK), an open-source development framework, to provision cloud application resources.

Prior to launching its platform, Paytron took advantage of AWS Activate, a program offering startups AWS credits, support, and architectural guidance. Paytron used AWS Activate credits to employ contractors to help the company initiate its DevOps development model. “AWS Activate made an incredible difference to our business,” Veldsman says. “As a startup, you’re trying to buy yourself time in the early stages. Using AWS Activate, we could focus on building without dedicating engineers to maintain our network and infrastructure.”

Since launching, Paytron has scaled its business quickly on AWS, processing millions of dollars of payments per month in more than 180 countries. “With AWS serverless technologies, we can scale quickly and expand to new markets easily,” says Veldsman. 

The business is currently considering expansion into the United Kingdom, and values how it can easily navigate GDPR compliance on AWS and comply with data sovereignty requirements by leveraging AWS European Regions. Veldsman adds, “The AWS Cloud is more than just a technology solution to us. We’ve received massive support from the AWS team, which has helped us expand. Without this, it would’ve taken us ages to figure out requirements like GDPR.”

In addition to expansion, Paytron appreciates how it can quickly go to market with new software features and enhancements on AWS. “We carry out 20 deployments per day, and it’s simple and seamless using services like AWS Lambda and AWS CDK,” says Michael Jones, technical lead for Paytron. 

Paytron is capitalizing on its agility and fast development time to launch innovative new products, such as a new corporate credit card. “We definitely have a culture of experimentation within Paytron, and AWS makes that possible,” Jones says. “Using AWS, we can quickly build and deploy a new product, present it to customers, receive feedback, and start over if tweaks are required. Experimenting and iterating quickly helps us drive innovation within the business.”

Paytron has grown its engineering team quickly by attracting professionals who specialize in serverless solutions. In its first year of operations, the company increased its headcount by over 60 percent. “AWS has had an incredible impact on our hiring, because we’re finding people that are engaged and passionate about AWS serverless technology,” says Jones. “This helps us further differentiate our company as a place engineers want to work for.”

The company expects AWS to be at the center of its growth plans moving into the future. For example, Paytron is exploring the use of Amazon SageMaker for fraud detection and discovering abnormalities. “Overall, I can’t imagine building and launching our business using a traditional model,” says Jones. “As far as serverless technologies go, no other provider has the quality and level of maturity of AWS. We know AWS will help us drive additional growth and innovation.”

To learn more, visit aws.amazon.com/serverless.