What are Marketplaces and Platforms?

Written by Tom Hannah
18 April 2025

How do we define Marketplaces and Platforms? In short, it is any merchant that is bringing together buyers and sellers in one place, providing a platform that facilitates interactions between them; either directly or indirectly. And normally taking a fee for facilitating that interaction.

Increasingly they are providing services that help maximize both seller and buyer lifetime value on the platform. Examples are issuing, lending, wallets, payout flexibility and choice, insights and optimization.

Traditionally it was accepted that the needs of Platforms, that manage multi-party payments, were met by different providers, each specializing in their own area and largely sticking to it.

However, when Marketplaces emerged as a new business model it forced a coming together of these use cases. It drove the need for a single experience across all of these components. Merchants are no longer willing to accept lengthy processes, expensive feature bundles & reliance on multiple platforms.

Subsequent innovation has seen the emergence of more types of models conducting multi-party payments. Desires for cost optimization has pivoted traditional models to require more end-to-end technology solutions and regulation continues to make the space harder and harder to operate in.

What are the specific needs of Marketplaces & Platforms?

Although specific needs can vary across sector, target customer and target beneficiary, there are four core components that bind most of the use cases together.

Each section will give you an overview, an example of what this could look like using a ride-hailing app and which one of our APIs you can achieve it with:

Beneficiary onboarding & management

• creating virtual balance accounts for users on your platform
• verifying their identity to ensure they are safe to work with
• storing their information so you can pay them for their services or invoice them for yours

Example from a ride-hailing app:

• driver downloads an app and creates an account
• is asked to input basic identity and bank account information
• waits for the application to process and receives confirmation that identity and bank account check have successfully completed

Which Access API?

Our Parties API allows you to onboard, verify and manage your sellers/beneficiaries (known as parties in our API).

Pay-In

• accepting payments from your customers, with their preferred method of payment
• attributing the funds in that payment to multiple different virtual accounts

Example from a ride-hailing app:

• a passenger requests a ride
• the driver is notified in the app and accepts the fare
• a reservation of funds is placed on the passengers credit card for £20
• upon completion of the journey funds from the passengers credit card are claimed
• the ride-hailing app will take a £3 commission

Which Access API?

You can use our Card Payments and Split Payments API to take and split payments.

Money management and holding

• managing, storing and reconciling funds
• providing full visibility of all credits and debits on both the platforms and users virtual accounts

Example from a ride-hailing app:

• £17 is placed onto the drivers virtual account
• £3 is placed onto the apps virtual account

Which Access API?

Our Account APIs allow you to check balances, retrieve statements and transfer funds between your accounts.

Payout

• paying users of your platform the funds they are owed
• into their bank account, card or wallet of choice

Example from a ride-hailing app:

• one week later the driver requests payout of funds owed to their bank account
• moments later the driver receives a notification from their bank that they've received £17 into their bank account

Which Access API?

Use our Account Payouts and FX API to manage your payouts.