SKIDATA & Adyen: Access all areas

It's not always obvious things that make the experience. When you go skiing, you remember the slopes, the mountains, the Après Ski. You don't think of beeping your ski pass. Unless it doesn't work. That's where SKIDATA enters the equation.

Established in 1977, SKIDATA is a global market leader in access and revenue management. That means entry to the Alpine ski slopes, stadiums with 70,000 capacities (like Old Trafford), airports that cater to millions of travelers, shopping malls, spa facilities, amusement parks, and everything in between. In its own way, it helps keep the world turning.

In this article, we speak to three members of the SKIDATA team: Willem-Jan Balk, VP of Northern Europe, Florian Schneeberger, SVP of Marketing and Technology, and Senior Product Manager, Martin Treiblmayr. We'll explore SKIDATA's unique business model and how a global payments setup helps.

Usually we talk about platform business models in the context of marketplaces such as eBay or an Etsy, where sellers connect to shoppers under one brand umbrella. In SKIDATA's case, its platform provides access solutions to other businesses. With 10,000 installations in over 100 countries, and multiple users of differing sizes and verticals, SKIDATA is a wide-reaching platform like no other.

Payments need to be the least of SKIDATA's worries. So whether it's payment methods, or PCI compliance, working with Adyen means the team can spend less time on implementation and certification, and more time being a great partner. As of July 2021, we're working with SKIDATA in Europe, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, and Australia. VP of Northern Europe, Florian Schneeberger, explains why:

“The Adyen strategy to offer a simple-to-integrate, easy-to-scale platform fits perfectly with the SKIDATA environment and culture: Making complex technology very simple and easy to deploy for our customers. Also the superior technology stack, tailored APIs, and platform scalability played a key role in the decision to work with Adyen.”

Using Adyen for Platforms, SKIDATA can track and reconcile its platform payments with just one integration for all countries and channels. In addition, our built-in Know Your Customer (KYC) checks provide a uniform onboarding process for the 100s of car parks, ski slopes, and other access points signing up for SKIDATA every year.

For the uninitiated, KYC checks ensure users meet regulatory requirements and evaluate risk levels. Regulatory requirements vary from region to region, so a built-in automated process can save time, hassle, and let merchants accept payments sooner. With Adyen for Platforms, SKIDATA's users benefit from a localised sign-up, staggered info collection, and user-friendly UI. Onboarding is also paperless, saving time (and trees).

Arguably the most important piece of the puzzle is that SKIDATA only requires one contract across regions, and it can accept payments in multiple local currencies. As Florian notes:

“Since using Adyen, customer onboarding and payment processing has become simpler. Adyen for Platforms allows SKIDATA to on-board unlimited customers globally at the same time using Adyen’s automated hosted onboarding page. We also benefit from better transparency for all of our transactions.”

Many payment providers use legacy technology, requiring integration and certification for each point of sale terminal. For SKIDATA, that just won't do; its international footprint means countless moving parts, people, and merchants, across continents. Florian explains how it was in the past:

“Before working with Adyen we were dealing with heterogeneous providers, numerous local integrations, and contracts. Specifically the onboarding of customers and complex payment chains in all our countries was a challenge for our market organisations. With Adyen things are so much easier.”

Now SKIDATA is in full control. Integration with Adyen is one-off, and it can manage its terminals remotely. Martin explains how this has supported them with local payment methods and PCI compliance:

"We're able to manage all of our terminals in one place, we're less dependent on third parties, and we can add local payment methods like WeChat Pay and Apple Pay with the click of a button. Most importantly, we can reduce PCI scope for our users thanks to Adyen's end-to-end encryption."

With control and transparency high on SKIDATA's agenda, they approached us to work on a new project, SD Pay.

SD Pay is a white label solution powered by Adyen. Its merchants can use the payment method on a flexible basis, with no subscription required, while a backend payments solution comes with the trusted look and feel of SKIDATA. This means the parking operator will not have to adopt and maintain another party for payments. Martin explains the benefits:

"Our customers expect payments to be fully integrated with parking access systems. It just makes it so much simpler for a customer to deal with one company rather than with a parking access provider, plus a payment provider, terminal vendor, and acquirer. SDPay, powered by Adyen, makes this super-easy. Onboarding, integrated reporting, all in one place.”

Unless you're a little masochistic, parking your car isn't fun. And you've likely experienced at least one of these parking nightmares:

SKIDATA's QR code solution makes things more enjoyable, letting users pay via app or mobile web, with info stored on their smartphone. No queueing, no cash, no tiny bits of paper. They scan a code, and get an e-receipt. It's been especially beneficial for some of the company's larger merchants.

Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport was the first location to use SD Pay. Schiphol is one of Europe's largest airports, with over 72 million passengers passing through each year. It has upwards of 20,000 car parking spaces. Despite zero marketing activities or activation to encourage drivers to pay online, Schiphol saw a significant uplift of parking payments from POS to ecommerce. The simplicity of paying via QR code meant that drivers skipped queues and machines.

"Through Schiphol's partnership with SKIDATA and Adyen, we can offer visitors contactless payments through QR codes," said Dieme Ketel, BU Manager Parking, at Amsterdam Schiphol. "Not only was this relevant during COVID, but in the long term it has created a better checkout experience. Already, 4% of our visitors were able to find the QR code without us actively promoting it."

As the world returns to business-as-usual, people will be returning to the airports, slopes, spas, and stadiums with renewed vigour. And SKIDATA will be there to give you access, with a little help from Adyen.