Axcess Payment Services, the Leeds-based technology division of Axcess Payments Group, launched utlx on 27 August, a proprietary payments platform that connects to more than 300 banks and supports more than 30 alternative payment methods. The company, founded in 2007 and operating under PCI DSS Level 1 compliance, describes utlx as an operating layer rather than a gateway, bringing routing, monitoring, reporting and reconciliation into one environment.
Nick Fox, managing director and chief executive of Axcess Payments Group, answered written questions from The Fintech Times on why the group built its own platform, how its routing decisions are made, where the reconciliation savings fall and what has to be true for a merchant to be processing within a day.
Fox’s starting point is that moving money is no longer where the difficulty lies. “The payment rails themselves are mature, well established and highly reliable. The technology for moving a payment is rarely the problem.” The trouble begins afterwards, when a merchant tries to work out what happened across several providers, portals, reports and settlement files. Across the Axcess merchant base, businesses were working with multiple acquirers, banks and alternative payment methods, each with its own portal, reporting format and settlement data, which made a complete view of payment performance hard to obtain and left finance and operations teams with considerable manual work.
utlx was built to bring those pieces together. “It creates a single operating layer connecting payment processing, acquiring data, monitoring, reporting and reconciliation. Instead of logging into multiple back-office systems, merchants can see and manage their payment activity in one place.” Because the platform is proprietary, Fox said, Axcess controls its development and can configure workflows around a merchant’s sector, markets and operating model rather than imposing one gateway structure on every business.
Routing, and who sets the rules
The routing engine uses configurable rules and real-time decisioning, weighing transaction value, currency, payment method, issuer location, acquirer performance, risk parameters and the cost of each available route. Fox was clear that cost alone does not decide it. “The lowest-cost route is not necessarily the best route if it leads to more declined payments or a poorer customer experience. The objective is to find the best overall commercial outcome by balancing payment acceptance, risk and cost in real time.”
Asked how far approval rates move once routing is switched on, he declined to give a headline number. The improvement varies with a merchant’s starting position, transaction profile, markets and existing acquiring arrangements, so performance is measured against each merchant’s own baseline and the routing logic is refined as the platform builds a picture of approval patterns and failure drivers. Axcess typically designs and configures the initial rules, he said, because it understands the platform and the behaviour of the available routes, but the merchant has input and “retains control over its commercial priorities, risk appetite and any business-specific requirements.”
More than a new paint job
Payment orchestration is a crowded field, and Fox acknowledged the term has become broad. “Someone once described the more superficial end of orchestration to me as taking a car from the 1990s and giving it a new paint job. It may look modern and impressive from the outside, but the engine, controls and interior underneath remain largely unchanged.” With utlx, he said, Axcess rethought what sits underneath as well, bringing transaction, settlement and performance data from multiple acquirers and payment methods into one consistent operating environment where merchants can monitor activity, compare providers, investigate issues and manage reconciliation.
Being part of an acquiring group is, in his view, an advantage rather than a constraint. Nearly two decades of acquiring, gateway and consultancy work means the company understands where merchants encounter friction and how issues are handled through the payment lifecycle, which lets it act as “an effective bridge between merchants, banks and payment partners” rather than a technology layer sitting between them. Merchants can bring questions about their whole acquiring estate to Axcess rather than investigating each provider separately. The platform is not designed to tie a merchant to a single acquiring relationship, he added: it works across multiple acquiring partners, with routing configured around the merchant’s performance, risk and commercial objectives.
Finance teams as payment detectives
Reconciliation is where the launch release promised the largest operational saving. Fox described the starting point: a merchant with several acquirers logging into each provider’s portal, downloading separate transaction and settlement reports, adjusting for different formats and fee structures, then matching all of it against gateway records and the funds landing in its bank accounts. As volumes and the number of partners grow, he said, reconciliation can become a substantial role in its own right, with more opportunity for error and more difficulty spotting incorrect fees or missing settlements.
utlx’s reconciliation engine brings transactions, settlements, fees, refunds, chargebacks and payouts into a single workflow, so that exceptions can be identified and investigated and pricing and performance compared across providers without repeatedly downloading and restructuring data. On the time saved he again declined to offer one figure, saying it would be misleading to apply a single number to every business. “Finance teams should not have to spend their days acting as payment detectives, moving between portals and spreadsheets to work out whether the numbers match.” The platform lets them focus on reviewing exceptions and validating outcomes, he said, which reduces the administrative burden and can accelerate financial close.
Regulated sectors and the one-day claim
The release singled out gambling, foreign exchange and insurance. Fox said the three share a set of payment complexities despite being very different industries: multiple jurisdictions, legal entities, currencies and payment methods, several types of payout, and detailed regulatory, reporting and governance requirements. In these sectors, he said, complexity “does not simply increase as a business grows”; it multiplies, because every additional market, entity, acquirer or payment method brings another set of data, controls and reporting. One merchant Axcess works with operates across multiple jurisdictions using 12 acquiring banks and 18 alternative payment methods. He was careful about what the platform does not do on compliance. Axcess Payment Services operates under PCI DSS Level 1, but utlx “does not replace a merchant’s sector-specific regulatory responsibilities or an acquirer’s due-diligence obligations.” It gives each party better visibility and stronger operational controls with which to manage them. Travel, he added, presents the same demands.
On the claim that a merchant can be onboarded and processing in as little as one day, Fox set out the conditions. “Fast onboarding should not mean rushed onboarding.” It is achievable when a merchant has a transparent business and ownership structure, complete documentation, readily verifiable licensing information and a risk profile within the appetite of an appropriate acquirer. Layered ownership structures, unusual business models, licensing details that cannot be verified immediately, incomplete documentation or exposure requiring additional underwriting are what slow it down, and each acquirer has its own risk appetite, so a merchant suitable for one bank may not meet the criteria of another. Automated onboarding continues to improve, he said, but complex cases still require human review, and he expects responsible due diligence and underwriting to remain essential even as AI and better data services speed up verification.
Asia next, and how success will be judged
Axcess began in the UK and has since extended its reach across Europe, North America and South America, supporting cross-border merchants through domestic banking relationships. Asia is the main area of development over the next 12 to 18 months, alongside opportunities in Africa and among merchants operating across several regions. The company will keep expanding utlx’s payment-method connectivity and developing its routing, monitoring, reconciliation and analytics capabilities, with travel remaining a priority sector because of its international reach and complex payment requirements.
Asked how he will judge the platform a year from now, Fox listed financial performance as one measure among several: whether merchants achieve stronger payment performance, reduce reconciliation effort, identify issues more quickly and expand into new markets with greater control, alongside adoption, volumes and approval performance. “Ultimately, success is not simply about having more features on a screen. It is about whether merchants are processing payments more effectively, reconciling more quickly, spotting problems earlier and entering new markets with greater confidence.”
According to the launch release, utlx includes recurring payments, payment orchestration, merchant analytics, disbursements, virtual terminals, pay-by-link and branded checkout pages, and merchants can be onboarded and begin processing in as little as one day.
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