Tribe Payments has launched a sandbox environment to enable testing of new payments technology.

Announcing the launch at the Sibos conference in London, the company said the sandbox would be free-to-use and provide access to Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to encourage experimentation in back end payments.

It will enable developers to test new products for both issuing and acquiring by exploring, integrating and experimenting with all of Tribe’s APIs.

Tribe said the sandbox should help third parties such as banks, digital challengers and FinTechs to launch new card propositions or acquiring functionality by offering an insight into how a product would perform in a live environment. Once the developer is happy to move into production the service can be made live at the flick of a switch.

Alex Kelly, vice president of product at Tribe, said: “Nimble FinTechs and fast-following incumbents need first mover advantage to win over innovation-hungry consumers and gain market share – this has led to a technology arms race, where payment providers are seeking the next killer app that will give them an unfair competitive advantage.”

But, he explained: “Developers at these firms are hamstrung by environments that don’t allow them to test and experiment quickly and easily. As the first sandbox offering free access to APIs across issuing and acquiring, we want to change that, as well provide a safe environment for non-traditional providers to develop services.”

Tribe Payments officially launched in June and is the first European issuer processor to be certified to allow banks to issue UnionPay International cards. Certification from Mastercard and Visa means that organisations that use Tribe’s technology can issue cards and process payments using their infrastructure.

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