Smart Router (Enhanced)

Route every card payment to the best path. Smart Router evaluates each payment in real time (BIN, country, scheme, amount, recent health) and sends it through the Payment Connection most likely to succeed—at the best cost—with a safe fallback.

Payment Connection: your acquiring/gateway connection used to process a payment.

Why It Matters

Increased Transaction Success Rates

Routes to the best connection, reducing declines.

Cost Efficiency

Steers to lower-fee connections to cut processing costs.

Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

Faster, more successful checkouts improve the experience.

Scalability and Flexibility

Adapts to volume spikes and new markets without manual tuning.

Risk Mitigation

Avoids single-point dependence by switching based on real-time health.

Market Expansion

Prefer local connections to improve cross-border approvals.

How it works

Smart Router validates each payment, shortlists eligible connections, picks the best route by your strategy, and auto-falls back if needed.

Validation order: Payment → Filters → Eligible routes → Selection → (Chosen Payment Connection | Fallback) → Processor.

• Routing Rules

  • Filters: BIN / country / scheme guardrails.

  • Eligibility: which payment connections, geographies, schemes, or fallback to accept.

• Selection methods:

  • Load balance (round-robin).

  • Value bands (route by amount).

  • Health-aware (skip connections with elevated errors).

  • Fallback (default connection as a safety net).

The below diagram shows how Ottu’s Smart Router handles a transaction from the moment it starts, through rule checks and decision logic, to the final payment sent to the bank.

Routing rules

Routing rules are divided into two major categories: Blockers and Routers.

Blocker Rules

These rules filter transactions before routing begins.

BIN Access Control

Allows or blocks transactions based on the card's BIN range.

Geographic Restriction

Restricts or permits transactions based on card-issuing countries.

Card Scheme Restriction

Filters transactions by supported card networks such as Visa or Mastercard.

Router Rules

These rules assign valid transactions to the correct payment connection.

BIN-Based Routing

Routes a transaction to a specific payment connection based on BIN match.

Country-Based Routing

Directs transactions to payment connections depending on the card's issuing country.

Supported Schemes

Routes based on card type like Visa or Mastercard.

Fallback Routing

Acts as a backup route when no other rule matches.

Strategies

Once router rules find valid payment connections, strategies decide how to pick the best one.

Strategy Types:

• Multi-Selection: Considers several payment connections and selects based on rule logic.

Exclude Unavailable

• Removes payment connections with too many recent errors.

• Can blacklist for hours or until midnight.

• Automatically expires after a set time.

Transaction Size

• Routes based on transaction value.

• Each payment connection can have a minimum and maximum amount.

• Single-Selection: Narrows immediately to one best payment connection.

Round Robin

• Distributes transactions evenly across payment connections.

• Balances load by cycling through gateways.

Fallback

• Acts as a safety net.

• Sends to a default payment connection if no other options are available.

FAQ

1️What happens when a transaction exceeds the set maximum amount?

If a transaction exceeds the maximum amount set for the payment connection, it will be rerouted according to the configured routing rules or fallback option.

2️How does the Round Robin method distribute transactions?

The Round Robin method distributes transactions evenly across multiple payment connections, ensuring balanced load by sequentially cycling through available gateways.

3️What is the purpose of a Fallback option?

The Fallback option serves as a safety mechanism to ensure transactions still get processed by sending them to a default payment connection if no other payment connections are available.