Accelerating Time to Market: Payment testing with automation
You don’t send a spacecraft into orbit to find out whether its systems work.
Before launch, engineers recreate the mission environment on the ground. They simulate conditions, run scenarios, push systems to their limits, find what breaks, fix it, and run the same tests again. Because once you’re in orbit, fixing a problem is a very different story.
Payment projects have their own version of this challenge.
A single payment can involve a POS terminal, an ATM, a card scheme, an issuer, an acquirer, and several external systems — all communicating through different interfaces and protocols. Testing the full flow can mean coordinating multiple environments, configuring the right components, and making sure all the required interactions are available. And every time something changes, the whole exercise may have to be repeated.
That’s where SOLAR Testing Toolkit comes in.
Developed originally to test our own products, the Toolkit provides a configurable simulation of the payment environment. It can emulate ATMs, POS terminals, international and domestic card schemes, and multiple online and file-based interfaces, allowing teams to reproduce complex payment scenarios in a controlled and repeatable environment.
The same environment can then be used to test different situations — from a new feature to a complex integration flow or a high-load scenario.
T-minus 10. Functional testing. Does it work?
T-minus 5. Integration testing. Do all the systems work together?
T-minus 2. Regression testing. Did the latest change break anything?
T-minus 1. Performance testing. Can it handle the pressure?
T-minus 0. Liftoff.
Testing doesn’t have to mean writing a new piece of code for every scenario. Scenarios can be defined through a dedicated test description interface, while automated execution can be integrated into software build processes.
This becomes especially valuable when the same tests need to run again and again. Teams can reuse existing scenarios, automate execution, and get faster feedback on every change — without having to recreate the testing setup from scratch.
The result is a shorter distance between making a change and knowing whether it works.
In payment projects, that means less time spent preparing and maintaining test environments, faster feedback, and more time spent moving the solution forward.
All systems go. Product launch: liftoff.
