Clickadilla

Context

Clickadilla is a high-risk advertising network — a 500+ employee company processing $500–700K/month across the USA, CIS, EU, Asia and India. Across the engagement I owned payments, risk and acquiring end-to-end — building the function from the ground up and then scaling the acquiring network internationally.

Mandate

Stand up the company's entire PSP infrastructure from zero, own both payments and risk, and expand and harden the acquiring network across regions — including the demanding high-risk 18+ categories most providers won't touch.

What I built

• Onboarded and configured 6+ PSPs in parallel — UPI, Stripe, Unlimit, Upgate (payment orchestration), Shift4 and a Crypto PSP — covering cards, APMs, local rails, wallets and crypto, each through its full lifecycle: sourcing, due diligence, documentation, compliance approval, technical configuration, go-live.
• Built routing and cascade logic across the provider mix — payments routed by geography and payment type, with fallback to a secondary provider on decline so approval rates held up.
• Managed both sides of the money flow — advertiser inflows and publisher payouts — with correct routing, reconciliation and settlement.
• Authored AML policies compliant with US and Cyprus requirements, liaised with Legal & Compliance, and maintained a centralized repository of PSP agreements and compliance records.

Risk — hybrid fraud scoring

Designed a hybrid fraud & risk scoring system combining automated rules with manual review: rules flagged suspicious transactions automatically, edge cases went to a human. The result — a 34% cut in the fraud & chargeback rate.

Opening India via UPI

Integrating UPI — India's dominant, low-cost local rail — unlocked the Indian market: a whole new client segment became reachable and a new revenue stream opened, because clients there could finally pay the way they actually pay.

Acquiring expansion

Ran the full acquiring-partner lifecycle — due diligence, AML/KYC, onboarding and ongoing relationship management. Onboarded and integrated Stripe and Shift4 through full compliance for high-risk 18+ categories, and sourced acquiring partners across EU, LatAm, US and Asia, adding crypto and alternative payment methods to widen coverage and approval. Result: +40% payment processing volume.

Cost optimization

Continuously tuned the PSP mix and routing to push volume onto the most efficient rails — materially reducing cost per transaction (−15% acquiring costs) — and passed external compliance audits across the high-risk profile.