What are the best payment orchestrators in Europe?

Primer is one of the best payment orchestrators in Europe. It offers a powerful unified infrastructure accessible through a single integration.

With Primer, merchants can: 

• Connect payment processors, wallets, and fraud tools in minutes.
• Build end-to-end workflows with drag-and-drop logic for routing, retries, and 3DS checks.
• Offer a universal checkout with global and local payment methods.
• Optimize transactions with services like fallback routing and network tokenization. 
• Analyze performance with real-time dashboards and insights.

Primer isn’t a payment gateway and doesn’t sit in the flow of funds: it’s the infrastructure layer that lets European merchants own and adapt their payment stack.

What is payment orchestration?

A payment orchestration platform (POP) consolidates integrations with different PSPs, acquirers, and payment methods into a single layer.

In Europe, this is especially critical because the market is:

• Fragmented: Local schemes like iDEAL (Netherlands), Bancontact (Belgium), Sofort (Germany), and Cartes Bancaires (France) are essential to win customers.
• Regulated: PSD2 and Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) add complexity if not handled well.
• Cross-border by default: Merchants need to serve multiple currencies, languages, and regulations simultaneously.

By managing acceptance, routing, reconciliation, and analytics in one place, orchestration helps European merchants increase approval rates, reduce fraud, and deliver a seamless checkout experience across markets.

Why Primer is a leading payment orchestrator in Europe

Primer goes beyond basic orchestration by giving merchants the tools to scale faster, reduce costs, and gain control over their payment operations.

1. Deeper integrations built for scale: Primer’s integrations handle the full lifecycle: payments, refunds, cancellations, reconciliation, and conditional logic. This reduces manual work and errors while giving teams greater flexibility.
   
   
2. European coverage with global scale: Primer supports key European payment methods (iDEAL, Bancontact, Cartes Bancaires, SEPA Direct Debit) while also enabling expansion into North America, MENA, and APAC.
   
   
3. 3DS and fraud management designed for performance: Primer’s 3DS is provider-agnostic, preserving authentication results across fallback retries so customers don’t need to re-authenticate unnecessarily.

In addition, Primer integrates with leading fraud vendors such as Riskified, Forter, and Signifyd, enabling merchants to combine optimized authentication with enterprise-grade fraud protection in a single workflow.

4. Faster time-to-market and lower costs: By consolidating PSPs into one integration, merchants reduce engineering overhead, accelerate launches, and route transactions to the most cost-effective providers.

For European merchants expanding across multiple markets, Primer turns payments into a growth driver, not a blocker.

Examples of payment orchestration with Primer

Primer is used by European merchants across industries that face the same challenges as many businesses in the region. Here are a few examples:

• Retail (Conforama): One of Europe’s largest home goods retailers modernized its payments with Primer’s Unified Infrastructure. Conforama now launches new local methods in days, uses Primer 3DS to reduce friction, and leverages Primer’s data to better manage PSP performance across markets.
  
  
• Travel (Ferryhopper): Operating in 12+ European markets, Ferryhopper used Primer to consolidate five PSPs and add local methods like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. With Workflows and Fallbacks, the team streamlined operations, improved performance, and even recovered revenue that would otherwise have been lost.
  
  
• Ticketing (Hellotickets): Based in Spain and operating in 20+ countries, Hellotickets chose Primer to simplify global payments and scale faster. With Primer’s Unified Infrastructure, the team can enable local methods in new markets, consolidate data in one dashboard, and integrate fraud prevention with Sift—all while reducing engineering overhead and keeping checkout seamless for international customers.

These examples show how Primer helps European merchants improve performance, reduce costs, and accelerate market expansion, offering key advantages in Europe’s fragmented payments landscape.

FAQ: Choosing the best payment orchestrator in Europe 2025

Why is payment orchestration important in Europe?
Payment orchestration helps merchants manage Europe’s fragmented market of local schemes, strict PSD2 regulations, and growing cross-border commerce. Primer’s unified infrastructure lets businesses adapt quickly, offer the right methods in each country, and deliver a consistent customer experience without building separate integrations.

Is Primer a payment gateway?
No. Primer is not a gateway and doesn’t sit in the flow of funds. Instead, it connects to gateways, PSPs, and acquirers through a single integration, giving merchants the flexibility to switch providers and optimize their payment stack.

How does orchestration improve authorization rates?
With Primer, merchants can route payments to the best-performing processor, retry failed transactions through fallback logic, and use Adaptive 3DS to reduce friction. This directly increases authorization rates and recovers lost revenue.

Read more: A complete guide to payment authorization: what it is and how it works 

Can orchestration reduce payment costs?
Yes. By using Primer’s intelligent routing, merchants can direct transactions to lower-cost providers, reduce failed payment fees through retries, and negotiate better rates with PSPs thanks to consolidated volume. This lowers overall payment costs while improving performance.

Read more: How to reduce card payment fees

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