This is a session given by Horia Jurcut at Nordic APIs 2016 Platform Summit on October 25th, in Stockholm Sweden. Description: Spotify is one of the world leaders in media subscriptions and is the largest music streaming service with over 30 million paying subscribers. We currently provide 16 different methods of payment in over 60 countries and we continue to expand our offerings. In this session we are going to talk about engineering an internal API to abstract away from the complexities of multiple payment gateways and multiple clients with potentially long release cycles (iOS, Android). I will share some of the benefits of growing the API organically, and some of the downfalls of premature abstraction.

1. How we create APIs to manage complexity
1
Horia Jurcut
horia@spotify.com
Spotify Payments

2. History of Spotify

3. Credit Cards
2008
Finland
France
Norway
Spain
Sweden
2008
2006
Initial launch
2016

4. Credit Cards
2008
PayPal
2011
Finland
France
Norway
Spain
Sweden
2008 Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Great Britain
Switzerland
The Netherlands
USA
2011
2006
Initial launch Growth
2016

5. Credit Cards
2008
PayPal
2011
Finland
France
Norway
Spain
Sweden
2008 Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Great Britain
Switzerland
The Netherlands
USA
2011
2006
Initial launch Growth
Boku
Sofort
Klarna
Google iAP
Facebook payments
2013
Argentina
Australia
Colombia
Hong Kong
Ireland
Germany
...
2013
+ 37 markets
Global Company
2016

6. Credit Cards
2008
PayPal
2011
Finland
France
Norway
Spain
Sweden
2008 Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Great Britain
Switzerland
The Netherlands
USA
2011
2006
Initial launch Growth
Boku
Sofort
Klarna
Google iAP
Facebook payments
2013
Argentina
Australia
Colombia
Hong Kong
Ireland
Germany
...
2013
+ 37 markets
Global Company
Adyen
PaySafe Card
Oxxo
iDeal
dotPay
DragonPay
SafetyPay
DirectDebit
Boleto
iOS iAP
2015
Brazil
Canada
Philippines
2015
Localization
2016

7. Credit Cards
2008
PayPal
2011
Finland
France
Norway
Spain
Sweden
2008 Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Great Britain
Switzerland
The Netherlands
USA
2011
2006
Initial launch Growth
Boku
Sofort
Klarna
Google iAP
Facebook payments
2013
Argentina
Australia
Colombia
Hong Kong
Ireland
Germany
...
2013
+ 37 markets
Global Company
Adyen
PaySafe Card
Oxxo
iDeal
dotPay
DragonPay
SafetyPay
DirectDebit
Boleto
iOS iAP
2015
Localization
Fortumo
Doku
econtext
2016
40 million
subscribers
2016
Indonesia
Japan
2016
60 markets
2016
Optimization
Brazil
Canada
Philippines
2015

8. What are Payments?

9. Bank
Users
1
Payments @ Spotify

10. Bank
Users
1
Checkout
Go to spotify.com
2
Payments @ Spotify

11. Bank
Users
1
Checkout
Go to spotify.com Validate card
2
Payment
Backend
Payments @ Spotify

12. Bank
Users
1
Checkout
Payment
Provider
Go to spotify.com Validate details Authorize payment
2
Payment
Backend
Payments @ Spotify

13. Bank
Users
1
Checkout
Payment
Provider
Credit
Network
Go to spotify.com Validate card
Contact bank
2
Authorize payment
Payment
Backend
Payments @ Spotify

14. Bank
Users
1
Checkout
Payment
Provider
Credit
Network
Go to spotify.com Validate card
Valid card
Contact bank
Authorize payment
Valid card
2
3
Payment
Backend
Payments @ Spotify

15. Bank
Users
1
Checkout
Payment
Provider
Credit
Network
Go to spotify.com Validate card
Valid card
Contact bank
Authorize payment
Valid card
Access to Spotify Premium
2
3
Payment
Backend
Payments @ Spotify

16. Checkout
Payment
Provider
Payments @ Spotify
Payment
Backend

17. Checkout
Payments @ Spotify
Payment
Providers
...
Payment
Backend

18. Checkout
Checkout API
Payments @ Spotify
Payment
Providers
...
Payment
Backend

19. Checkout
Checkout API Billing API
Payments @ Spotify
Payment
Providers
...
Payment
Backend

20. Checkout API

21. Checkout API
Payment Backend

22. Checkout API
Payment BackendClients

23. Checkout API
Payment BackendClients
“What?”
next steps

24. Checkout API
Payment BackendClients
“How?” “What?”
next steps
send data
send data
send data
send data

25. Checkout API
Payment BackendClients
Checkout
API
“How?” “What?”
send data
send data
send data
send data
next steps

26. CC
Form
CC Form
Checkout API

27. Success
CC Form Confirmation
Checkout API
CC
Form

28. Success
CC
Form
Tax
Info
CC Form ConfirmationTax Info
Required
in some
countries
Checkout API

29. Success
CC
Form
Tax
Info
CC Form ConfirmationTax Info
Required
in some
countries
Payment
Backend
Checkout API
Clients

30. Success
Billing
Address
CC
Form
Tax
Info
CC Form ConfirmationTax Info
Required
in some
countries
Billing Address
Payment
Backend
Checkout API
Clients

31. Success
Billing
Address
CC
Form
Tax
Info
Offer
Code
One Time Code
X3G6D8A7
CC Form ConfirmationTax Info
Required
in some
countries
Billing Address
Payment
Backend
Checkout API
Clients

32. Checkout
API
Success
Billing
Address
CC
Form
Tax
Info
Offer
Code
One Time Code
X3G6D8A7
CC Form ConfirmationTax Info
Required
in some
countries
Billing Address
Payment
Backend
Checkout API
Clients

33. Checkout API
Checkout
API
Start purchase What is the first step?

34. Checkout API
Checkout
API
Start purchase What is the first step?
Collect CC InformationDisplay CC Form
CC Form

35. Checkout API
Checkout
API
Start purchase What is the first step?
Collect CC InformationDisplay CC Form
CC Form
CC Form
Send credit card data Send credit card data

36. Checkout API
Checkout
API
Start purchase What is the first step?
Collect CC InformationDisplay CC Form
CC Form
CC Form
Confirmation
Show ConfirmationDisplay Confirmation
Send credit card data Send credit card data

37. Checkout API
Checkout
API
Start purchase What is the first step?
Collect CC InformationDisplay CC Form
CC Form
Send credit card data Send credit card data
Confirmation
Show ConfirmationDisplay Confirmation
CC Form
One Time Code
X3G6D8A7

38. Advantages
Spotify Payments
● Change checkout experience without client release
● Clients can build native experiences
● Consolidated business logic
● Rapidly test, experiment and learn
● Mix & Match

39. Billing API

40. Billing API
Clients

41. Billing API
Clients
Checkout
API

42. Billing API
Payment BackendClients
Checkout
API

43. Billing API
Payment BackendClients
Checkout
API
Adyen
PayPal
Klarna
Payment Providers

44. Billing API
Payment BackendClients
Checkout
API
Adyen
PayPal
Klarna
Billing
API
charge
success
Payment Providers

45. Billing API
Payment BackendClients
Checkout
API
Adyen
PayPal
Klarna
Billing
API
charge
success
Payment Providers
Financial
Data
SettlementReconciliation Callbacks Monitoring

46. Billing API
Payment BackendClients
Checkout
API
Adyen
PayPal
Klarna
Billing
API
charge
success
Payment Providers
Financial
Data
SettlementReconciliation Callbacks Monitoring

47. Automatic Alerts

48. Monitoring
Billing
API
{
"message": "payment_received",
"provider": "adyen",
"method": "cards",
"amount: "9.99",
"currency": "USD",
"country": "US",
"product_type": "premium",
"duration:" 1,
"duration_type": "month",
"reference": "9107771201",
}
{
"message": "payment_failed",
"provider": "adyen",
"method": "cards",
"amount: "9.99",
"currency": "USD",
"country": "US",
"product_type": "premium",
"duration:" 1,
"duration_type": "month",
"reference": "9108771203",
"failure_code": "399",
}

49. Automatic Alerts
Payment transactions processed (initial payments)
Payment transactions failed (initial payments)

50. Automatic Alerts
Payment transactions processed (initial payments)
Payment transactions failed (initial payments)
Broke initial payments

51. Automatic Alerts
Payment transactions processed (initial payments)
Payment transactions failed (initial payments)
Broke initial payments
Provider had an issue

52. Automatic Alerts
Payment transactions processed (initial payments)
Payment transactions failed (initial payments)
Broke initial payments
Provider had an issue
Other providers
continued working

53. Advantages
Spotify Payments
● Fairly low number of false positives
● Works very well for high volume providers (Adyen)
● Become more aware of local events

54. API Design

55. Why we build APIs
Spotify Payments
● Many clients, many providers
● Integrate with other internal systems
● More complex products and business rules
● Customization

56. My time @ Spotify
Spotify Payments
● APIs make it easier for multiple teams to collaborate
● APIs help you take a hard problem and divide it into more
manageable domains
● APIs require documentation
● APIs enable you to rapidly test, experiment and learn

57. Tack.
57
Spotify Payments