Platform capability
Intelligent payment routing
Each payment goes to the provider most likely to approve it. The decision is made per transaction, from your rules and how each provider is performing right now, instead of one fixed default.
- Rules first: method, amount, currency, provider limits
- Then live data: recent success rate, response time, cost
- The reason for every decision is kept with the payment
A ₹2,450 UPI payment arrives. Rules exclude Provider C because the amount is above its limit. Providers A, B and D are compared on recent success rate, speed and cost, and the payment is routed to Provider B.
The problem
A single default provider costs you payments you never see
Most checkouts send every payment to one provider. But approval rates aren't uniform. The same provider can be excellent for cards and mediocre for UPI, strong with one issuing bank and weak with another, and fast at noon but slow at 9 pm when volumes peak.
With a fixed default you absorb those differences as failed payments. Because nothing runs alongside it, there's no baseline that tells you what you're losing.
What it looks like in practice
- UPI success dips every evening, and nobody can say whether it's the bank, the PSP or the app
- High-value card payments decline more than small ones on the same provider
- A provider incident means failed payments until someone changes the config by hand
- Pricing differs by method and ticket size, but everything pays the same route's rate
How it works
How a routing decision is made
Every payment goes through the same four steps before the customer is sent to authenticate.
- 01
Filter: which providers can take this payment?
Hard constraints come first. A provider is a candidate only if it supports the method (UPI intent or collect, cards, netbanking, wallets), the currency and the amount. For saved cards and mandates it must also hold the token or mandate. Providers you've paused, or that failover has marked unhealthy, are skipped.
- 02
Apply your rules
Your business rules come next. For example: international cards go to the cross-border provider, card payments above ₹2 lakh stay with your acquiring bank, and a new provider gets 10% of UPI while you evaluate it. Rules are evaluated in the order you set.
- 03
Rank the remaining candidates on live performance
Among the providers still eligible, Peneu ranks on the signals you choose: recent success rate for this method (and for this bank or card network where volume allows), response time, and your cost. The window is rolling, so a provider having a bad hour loses traffic quickly and wins it back when it recovers.
- 04
Route, and record why
The payment is created on the chosen provider. The decision is stored with the payment: which providers were candidates, which rule matched and how they ranked. Support and finance can later see why a payment went to Provider B.
Inputs
What routing can use
Most teams start with method and success rate, then add cost and bank-level rules once they have enough data.
| Signal | Examples | Typical use |
|---|---|---|
| Payment method | UPI intent, UPI collect, cards, netbanking, wallets, EMI | Different providers for different methods |
| Card network and type | Visa, Mastercard, RuPay · credit or debit · domestic or international | Send international cards to a provider that supports them |
| Issuing bank | Card BIN range, netbanking bank | Move one issuer's payments off a provider that underperforms for it |
| Amount | Ticket-size bands | Keep high-value payments on a direct acquiring relationship |
| Currency | INR, USD, EUR and others where supported | Non-INR payments to providers that accept them |
| Recent success rate | Rolling window per provider and method | The default ranking signal |
| Response time | p95 latency per provider | Tie-breaker, and a guard against slow providers at peak |
| Cost | Your agreed rate per provider and method | Prefer the cheaper route when success rates are close |
| Split | 90/10, 70/30 and so on | Evaluate a new provider, or honour a volume commitment |
Which signals are available depends on the providers connected to your account and the data they return.
Configuration
Routing rules as configuration, not code
Rules live in Peneu, not in your checkout. If you need to, you can still override them on a single request.
- Amounts are in paise, so 245000 is ₹2,450
- Field names are illustrative. The full reference comes with sandbox access
{
"method": "upi",
"rules": [
{ "if": { "amount_gte": 20000000 }, "route": ["acquiring_bank"] },
{ "if": { "new_provider": "provider_d" }, "split": { "provider_d": 10 } }
],
"rank_by": ["success_rate_15m", "p95_latency", "cost"],
"tie_margin_pct": 1.5
}curl -X POST https://api.peneu.com/v1/payments \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $PENEU_API_KEY" \
-H "Idempotency-Key: 5f1c2e0a-order-10234" \
-d '{
"amount": 245000,
"currency": "INR",
"method": "upi",
"reference_id": "order-10234",
"routing": { "strategy": "success_rate" }
}'"routing": {
"chosen": "provider_b",
"candidates": ["provider_a", "provider_b", "provider_d"],
"excluded": { "provider_c": "amount_above_limit" },
"rule": "rank_by:success_rate_15m",
"scores": { "provider_b": 0.93, "provider_a": 0.82, "provider_d": 0.71 }
}Worth knowing
Where routing can't help
Routing chooses between providers that can all process the payment. It can't fix a decline the customer caused, such as a wrong UPI PIN or insufficient funds, and sending those payments elsewhere only adds noise.
It also has to respect ownership. Saved cards (tokenised under RBI's card-on-file rules) and UPI Autopay or eNACH mandates belong to the provider that created them, so recurring charges stay on that provider unless the tokens or mandates are migrated.
Where it matters most
Teams that get the most from routing
Travel and hospitality
High-value card payments that peak around sales. Route large tickets to the acquirer that approves them best, and keep an aggregator as the second route.
Travel & hospitalityGaming and digital content
Many small UPI payments, mostly in the evening. Ranking on live UPI success stops a slow PSP from costing you top-ups at peak.
Gaming & digital entertainmentEducation
Fee collection comes in bursts at the start of term. Spread the load across providers and keep a second route warm for the busiest days.
Education
Evaluating it
Questions to ask about this, of any provider
Use these with any platform, including Peneu. For Peneu, what's available for your business is confirmed during onboarding.
- Can I see why each payment went where it did?
- Routing you can't explain is routing you can't trust or tune.
- Which signals does routing use, and how fresh are they?
- Success rates by method and failure reason are more useful than totals.
- How are flapping and starvation avoided?
- Thresholds, minimum traffic and cooling periods stop routing from making things worse.
- Can I set rules by method, amount and business unit?
- Most businesses need plain rules before any automatic optimisation.
FAQ
Questions about intelligent routing
Do I need to change my checkout to use intelligent routing?
No. You create payments the same way and routing happens inside Peneu. If you need to, you can pass a strategy or a preferred provider on an individual request.
How quickly does routing react when a provider starts failing?
It depends on your volume. The more payments per minute, the sooner a drop in success rate becomes statistically clear. Hard failures such as errors and timeouts are handled separately by automatic failover, which doesn't wait for success-rate data.
Can I route on cost?
Yes, once you've entered your pricing per provider and method. Most teams use cost as a tie-breaker: take the cheaper provider only when success rates are within a margin you choose.
What happens to saved cards and recurring mandates?
They stay on the provider that holds the token or mandate. Routing only chooses among providers that can process that specific payment.
Can I see why a payment went to a particular provider?
Yes. Each payment carries its routing decision: the candidates, any provider excluded and why, the rule that matched and the ranking.
Works together with
See how routing would work on your traffic
Tell us which providers and payment methods you use today. We'll walk you through how rules and live ranking would apply to them.
Last reviewed . Samples on this page are illustrative.