Montonio – Netkodo

Project details

Montonio, as one of the most rapidly developing payment gateway providers in the CEE region, offers a complete suite of payment, logistics, and financial solutions tailored for e-commerce.
The company operates in markets including Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Finland, Germany, and Poland, providing services such as a payment gateway, instant payments, courier integrations, returns management, and BNPL (Buy Now, Pay Later) options.
To capitalize on the expansive e-commerce market, Montonio aimed to enter the Shopify platform. Their existing technology stack included a proprietary platform based on REST/GraphQL API, microservices, and a scalable architecture using Go and JavaScript (Node.js).
However, to integrate their payment methods with Shopify, they required custom applications. Montonio needed expert support in creating these payment applications to make their services available to Shopify merchants and their customers.

The Challenge: Integrating Custom Payments into a Closed Platform

The primary business objective for Montonio was to make its external payment methods available for use on the Shopify platform. This required a full integration of their payment services into Shopify via dedicated applications.
The project's goal was to meet the needs of Shopify store owners by allowing them to utilize these new payment methods, which in turn would enhance the shopping experience for end customers and improve sales conversion rates.
The idea was to create an integration between Montonio's external payment processing solutions that would satisfy all of Shopify's functional requirements, meet the platform's high standards, and pass a positive evaluation from its experts and testers.
The project faced several technical and business requirements. A key challenge was the need for Montonio to prepare and document its API to support functionalities required by Shopify, such as refunds.
Additionally, a server, preferably on AWS, needed to be correctly configured and prepared. Montonio was also responsible for providing detailed materials about its payment methods and ensuring its external services operated correctly with a functional test environment.

The Solution

Leveraging our previous experience in developing similar applications, we approached the project with a structured and proven methodology.
The process began with a thorough verification of Montonio's existing payment solutions, API, documentation, and infrastructure.
Then, our team gathered Montonio's expectations regarding the display, functionality, and configuration panel for the payment methods.
In collaboration with the client, we prepared an AWS server, adhering to CI/CD best practices. The development was executed in phases, starting with the implementation of an application for a single, chosen payment method.
Following its successful creation, we assisted Montonio in completing the application listing details, including descriptions, test procedures, and video materials, before submitting it to Shopify for review.
This entire process was then replicated for the subsequent payment methods. Thanks to good communication and the client's reliability, the project encountered no significant problems, which can often arise from external providers whose solutions behave differently than initially declared.
The project utilized AWS Cloud Services, with ECS for hosting the applications, ECR for managing container images, and S3 for file storage. CodePipeline and CodeDeploy were used to automate the CI/CD process. The codebase was versioned in GitHub with full unit test coverage using RSpec.
For the user interface, Polaris View Components were implemented to ensure visual consistency with Shopify's native design. A key technical success was hosting all the applications on a single ECS server, which significantly reduced the client's costs compared to previous scenarios that often required multiple servers.
The development was completed with high efficiency. The first phase, which involved preparing the initial payment application, took approximately 200 developer hours. The second phase, for the following nine applications, required only about 60 developer hours. The project management time totaled around 15-20 hours.
At present, the applications are awaiting final acceptance by Shopify. Future work will involve maintenance, primarily updates related to Shopify's requirements or changes from external payment providers, with the potential to add more payment methods as separate applications.

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Achieved results

The project resulted in the creation of applications that enable the use of payment methods previously unavailable in specific localizations on Shopify.
This provides both merchants (clients) and their end-users (consumers) with the ability to process payments using a wider range of methods, which supports and streamlines the purchasing process.
The long-term benefit for Montonio is expanding its market reach.

Summary

We successfully partnered with Montonio to navigate the complexities of the Shopify ecosystem, transforming a strategic business goal into a functional reality.
The core challenge was to integrate Montonio's specialized CEE payment methods into Shopify's platform by developing custom applications that met the platform's exacting standards.
By implementing a phased, experience-driven approach and a modern AWS-based technology stack, we efficiently delivered ten robust, cost-effective payment applications.
The outcome is a market-ready solution that empowers Shopify merchants with greater payment flexibility, enhances the checkout experience for consumers, and provides Montonio with a crucial entry point for significant growth within the global e-commerce landscape.

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