Featured Insights

Żappka Pay, modern fintech solution for the żappka superapp

Client

Largest convenience store network

in Central and Eastern Europe

9000+ stores

across Poland

~10 mln downloads

of B2C mobile app “żappka”

15.5 mln customers

across Poland

8000 franchisees

across Poland

50+ autonomous stores

across Europe

Industry

Convenience Retail

Objective

After a remarkably successful launch, the żappka app quickly gained the appreciation of Polish users. More than 3 million people were already using it to take advantage of personalized promotions and discounts, collect points, and exchange them for rewards.

Żabka realized that introducing a proprietary payment system could benefit both the company and its customers. Żappka Pay would make it much more convenient to identify users and apply discounts and rewards to their accounts upon purchase.

Challenge

Build fast and secure in-app fintech solution for żappka
Enable applying personalized discounts and collecting loyalty points at the same time
Integrate multiple systems with the backend and fintech infrastructure

Mobile Development

Native Android App
Native iOS App

Web Development

Python Development
Internal platform integration
External platform integration

Cloud Services

Azure Cloud infrastructure setup

Product Maintenance

System monitoring
Service Level management

We started the project by performing an in-depth technical analysis.

We knew that building Żappka Pay would require us to integrate multiple complex systems: the payment provider (First Data), Żabka’s POS system, and the mobile app itself.

After gaining a sufficient understanding of their interdependencies, we designed the key element that now combines all these systems: Payment Gateway & API.

Planning everything at an early stage allowed us to mitigate project risk and ensure smooth delivery.

Only after complete technical analysis did we proceed with the actual backend development.

We chose to build it in Django. The framework is not only popular but also universal and proves to be a good choice whenever an integration of multiple systems is involved.

In this case, the main purpose of Payment Gateway is to support the activities revolving around tokenizing cards and authorizing users based on the PIN code or biometrics.

We also ensured the safety of the whole process,

leveraging best practices and solutions that impede so-called man-in-the-middle attacks during communication with the device. Specifically for Żappka Pay, First Data Polska made it possible to:

Protect sensitive data of card owners by communicating with the app solely through tokens
Ensure tokenization and detokenization of all cards added to the app’s wallet
Execute strong user authentication when adding cards to the app thanks to 3D Secure technology
Settle transactions and transfer the funds to the merchant’s account

To make the solution readily available to żappka users, we also created a brand new module in the mobile app.

While developing the UI, we focused on ensuring seamless user experience and ultimate reliability.

We achieved that by implementing a range of innovative solutions that enable features like:

Several methods to add payment cards: by scanning the card, “reading” its data with the use of NFC, adding the card during shopping after giving consent, or manually
Fast and secure payment for any purchase in Żabka stores (with personalized deals and loyalty points applied in the process)
PIN code, biometrics or face authentication
Payment card management: users can add multiple cards, edit their details, and erase them as they please

Results

żappka users can now pay via a reliable in-app fintech solution.

Żappka Pay not only enables fast and secure in-store payments, but also offers a range of benefits to the business:

Increasing the “usability” of the loyalty program and making it easier to exchange loyalty points for rewards
Accelerating in-store customer service for żappka users
Serving as an important building block for other Żabka services that leverage transactions