HeyMax was founded in 2023 with the vision of making travel rewards simpler, more accessible, and more rewarding. As Sumit Sen, HeyMax’s Director of Engineering explains, HeyMax helps consumers unlock travel rewards across what was traditionally a fragmented and difficult process.
Since its launch, the company has grown rapidly: in 2024 alone, HeyMax issued more than 500 million Max Miles, driving over US$200 million in total transaction volume. It has also launched in Hong Kong and building towards its expansion into other Asia-Pacific markets.
Their steady expansion and their intrinsically international sector brought a clear need for seamless and resilient payment channels. Partnering with Juspay, HeyMax was able to leverage a payment orchestration platform that allowed them to flexibly work with multiple providers without disrupting the user experience.
SMEhorizon speaks with Sumit Sen on HeyMax’s foray into payment orchestration and how it has helped their business grow globally. Nakul Kothari, Head of APAC and Middle East, Juspay, also weighs in on what these payment orchestration platforms can bring to startups and SMEs who are looking to build scalable payment infrastructure.
Meeting the challenges of startups and SMEs
Sen explains that HeyMax understood the need for keeping payments seamless and resilient as the company continued to scale and enter new markets. “Relying on a single provider meant higher risk if there was downtime, and adding new processors in each market was both time-consuming and costly from an engineering perspective,” he explained.
Elaborating on the hurdles that Startups and SMEs like HeyMax face, Kothari adds that these companies often lack the resources to integrate multiple acquirers, manage cross-border complexities, or keep up with evolving compliance standards.
“The result is a patchwork of fragmented systems that may work locally but fail to scale globally. Costs of integration and maintenance are disproportionately high for smaller businesses, making it difficult to compete with larger players.”
“Without a strong orchestration platform, SMEs risk lower success rates, higher transaction fees, and a poor customer experience. This creates an urgent need for modular, ready-to-use infrastructure.”
Payment orchestration is a rapidly evolving space that meets these needs. “Payment orchestration is rapidly evolving from simple routing to becoming an intelligent layer that optimizes every transaction in real-time,” says Kothari.
“Businesses today demand frictionless, scalable solutions that improve authorization rates while reducing costs. There’s also a clear shift toward supporting local payment methods and digital wallets, especially in markets like APAC and the Middle East.
“Embedded finance is gaining traction, with orchestration platforms enabling industries such as travel and retail to integrate payments seamlessly into customer journeys.”
For HeyMax, the demands of reliability made these solutions attractive. “Payment orchestration gave us the flexibility to work with multiple providers without disrupting the user experience,” says Sen. “Initially, we were looking at a simple card vault solution. But once we spoke with Juspay’s team, we saw the value of their broader orchestration capabilities.”
Kothari explains that the biggest advantage of payment orchestration for SMEs is that they don’t need to build complex systems themselves. “Modern platforms offer modular APIs and dashboards that connect them instantly to multiple acquirers and local payment methods. This reduces integration effort, lowers costs, and boosts authorization rates from day one.
“By leveraging orchestration, SMEs can expand into new markets without worrying about fragmented payment landscapes or compliance hurdles. Even with limited expertise, they gain access to enterprise-grade capabilities like routing intelligence and fraud protection. In short, orchestration levels the playing field for smaller businesses.”
HeyMax experienced this first hand when launching their vouchers business in Hong Kong. “Once we selected the processor,” recalls Sen, “it took less than 30 minutes to configure and process a live test transaction with Juspay.
“Previously, this setup could have taken us more than a week. That speed and flexibility have been a game-changer.”
Overcoming technical hurdles and keeping business secure
As with any new platform, the transitional period was an issue. “The biggest hurdle was migrating card data from our previous processor,” recalls Sen.
“We approached it in two ways: nudging users in-app to re-verify their cards in a secure flow, and working closely with Juspay to import existing tokens behind the scenes. This dual approach ensured a smooth transition without disrupting our users.”
Another major consideration, especially in the payments space, is security. This has been amply recognised by the industry, says Kothari, who elaborates on how payment platforms today are embedding security into the core of their architecture.
“Tokenization and encryption safeguard sensitive data, while real-time fraud detection powered by AI helps identify threats before they escalate. Advanced tools like behavioral biometrics and device fingerprinting add additional layers of defense.
“On the compliance front, adherence to PCI DSS, GDPR, and regional data laws ensures businesses meet the highest global standards.
“Equally important, orchestration allows risk rules to be applied dynamically across geographies, keeping merchants both agile and compliant. This holistic approach gives consumers and businesses confidence in every transaction.”
Maintaining trust is vital for any business, and especially so for SMEs who operate at smaller scales. Sen believes that payment orchestration platforms can help. “If uptime and user trust are critical, it’s worth considering an orchestration platform,” he says
“It gives you resilience by allowing multiple processors in your stack, and if you operate across markets, it helps balance local providers (for better rates) with global ones (for broader reliability).”
