Step 1 of 5
Someone taps a card on a terminal or confirms a purchase online. For them, this is where it starts and where it ends.
Integrations Manager | Payments: Acquiring · Cards · New Payment Rails
Jhonattan Rivera
I lead the Integrations team at Akua. Since 2020 I've worked at gateways, acquirers and issuers. I know the whole road a transaction travels and the spots where it usually breaks.
Where I've worked
Follow the payment
I've seen the same payment from three sides of the counter: the gateway that receives it, the acquirer that processes it and the issuer that decides. In the end, it's approved or declined. My work is making sure all those pieces are properly integrated.
How a payment travels
Scroll to follow it. The yellow tags mark where I've worked.
- Customer Card, wallet or QR
- I worked herePayU, Kushki Gateway Captures, tokenizes, routes
- I work hereAkua Acquirer Processes and settles
- Network Visa, Mastercard, local
- I worked herePomelo Issuer Approves or declines
Step 2 of 5
The gateway receives the card data, tokenizes it so nobody handles the real number, and decides where to route the payment.
I worked here at PayU and Kushki.
Step 3 of 5
The acquirer is the merchant's bank or processor. It builds the ISO 8583 message and hands it to the right network.
I lead integrations here, at Akua.
Step 4 of 5
Visa, Mastercard or a local network carries the message to the bank that issued the card, applying its own rules along the way.
Step 5 of 5
The issuer checks balance, risk and authentication, then answers: approved or declined.
I worked here at Pomelo.
00 Approved
The answer travels back the same way to the merchant, and the purchase goes through.
6
years in payments, across 4 LatAm companies
150+
clients taken live
15
countries across Latin America and Europe
3/5
links of the chain I've worked in
What I do
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End to end integrations
I take merchants and partners from the first technical call to their first real transaction in production, with compliance and fraud considered from the start.
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Infrastructure and transaction flow
I'm at home among gateways, processors and networks. I read ISO 8583 logs, review 3DS flows and know why a card-present payment behaves differently from e-commerce or Tap to Phone.
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Compliance and fraud
PCI DSS, 3-D Secure and risk rules that protect the business without killing conversion. I know network rules and Latin American regulation in production, not just on paper.
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Leading across teams
I lead Integrations at Akua: 30+ clients live (and counting) in 5+ countries, and a 2-day deployment record. I bridge product, engineering and support with playbooks that make every launch repeatable.
The vocabulary I use every day
ISO 8583PCI DSS3-D SecureEMVVisaMastercardAmerican ExpressDinersCash networksLocal railsPSEBre-B
E-commerceCard presentTap to PhonePOSIssuingAcquiringAPMsCryptoWebhooksOAuth 2SQLSalesforceAWS
Let's talk.
If you're building an integration, launching a payments product or trying to figure out why your payments aren't going through, drop me a line.
Spanish, native · English, advanced · Portuguese, intermediate