Platform - Payment Orchestration, Canonical Events, Split Settlements, Developer API

Layer 1

Smart Processor Routing

Dynamically selects the optimal processor for every transaction based on card type, MCC, historical approval rates, and real-time cost modeling. Routes across 7 integrated PSPs: Stripe, Square, Worldpay, NMI, and Adyen for card payments; Dwolla for ACH; Circle for USDC settlement (beta). Additional connectors sandbox-validated; live activation confirmed per-customer at onboarding.

When a processor experiences degradation, Penumbra detects it in milliseconds and reroutes traffic to a healthy path automatically. No merchant interruption, no manual intervention. The routing model learns from every decision and continuously tightens its scoring.

Decline recovery is built into the routing layer. When a transaction is declined on the first-pass processor, Penumbra re-routes it to an alternate. Industry benchmarks for first-pass decline recovery range from 2 to 5 percent depending on decline reason and card type; Penumbra-specific recovery rates will be published after the first full deployment.

How routing decisions are made

Each transaction is scored against every available processor. The model considers approval probability, transaction cost, processor latency, current health status, and historical performance for this card BIN and MCC combination. The highest-scoring path wins. Target decision time: sub-20 milliseconds (pre-production benchmark).

Connected processors and rails

Click any logo to visit the partner. Status reflects production integration; see the partner directory for full detail.

Card rails

0030

Worldpay NMI

Bank rails

DwollaACH ACH FedNow RTP

Stablecoin (USDC via Circle)

Base Avalanche

Card networks

Layer 2

Universal Token Vault

Token vault architected to PCI DSS Level 1 controls (formal certification pending) with a critical differentiator: cross-processor portability. Tokens travel with the merchant, never locked to a single acquiring bank.

If you switch processors, your tokens come with you. No re-tokenization, no card-on-file disruption, no revenue loss during migration. Envelope-encrypted key management (HSM on roadmap) with integrated account updater to keep stored credentials current as cards are renewed or replaced.

What portability means in practice

Most payment platforms issue tokens that are processor-specific. When you migrate, those tokens are worthless. Penumbra's universal token schema abstracts away the underlying processor, so the same token works across any connected PSP. Merchant migrations become operationally trivial.

Layer 3

Interchange Optimization Engine

Real-time Level 2 and Level 3 data enrichment on every qualifying transaction. The engine detects interchange downgrades before they happen and injects the data required to qualify for the best available rate at authorization time.

Most processors accept whatever interchange category a transaction lands in. Penumbra actively optimizes qualification on every single transaction. The savings compound across a portfolio. Result: 18 to 35 percent interchange reduction on qualifying portfolios.

L2/L3 enrichment at auth

Level 2 data: customer code, tax amount, tax indicator. Level 3 data: line-item detail, commodity codes, unit of measure, extended amounts. Injected automatically at the authorization step, before the interchange category is assigned. Downgrade detection fires before the transaction settles.

Layer 4

Autonomous Risk Decisioning

40+ specialized decision components evaluate every transaction, merchant event, and boarding application in parallel. An AI coordinator aggregates their outputs into a single decision with full explainability. Target time from ingestion to decision: sub-20 milliseconds (pre-production benchmark).

Fraud, compliance, velocity, behavioral-anomaly, and network-risk components run simultaneously. Each domain produces an output. The coordinator synthesizes them. Multi-signal consensus across velocity, behavioral, and network signals minimizes false positives. Chargeback prediction and automated fight-or-accept decisions are designed to significantly reduce manual review queues.

Note: AI-powered chargeback response drafting is a beta feature. Contact Penumbra for current availability.

The 8 intelligence domains

8 components: Risk Intelligence

7 components: Fraud Detection

6 components: Routing Intelligence

5 components: Interchange

5 components: Compliance

4 components: Chargeback

3 components: Merchant Intelligence

3 components: Residual Intelligence

Pen.v1 Event Schema

One event schema across every rail.

Penumbra publishes every payment lifecycle event using a unified canonical schema called Pen.v1. 41 event types across 11 semantic families. Every integration receives the same structured payloads regardless of which PSP processed the transaction.

Pen.v1 eliminates the integration tax of learning each processor's proprietary event format. Build your platform logic once against the Pen.v1 schema. PSP migrations, additions, and failovers become invisible to your application layer.

11 event families, 41 types

Transaction Payout Risk Compliance Chargeback Refund Settlement Merchant Webhook Integration System

Webhook delivery

99.9 percent webhook delivery SLO. Retry logic with exponential backoff. Webhook replay: re-deliver any historical event to a new or updated endpoint. Full event log with delivery status per event per endpoint.

Payouts and Settlements

Multi-party splits. Automated payouts.

Native split settlement routes a single merchant transaction to multiple parties simultaneously: merchant, platform, marketplace partner, vendor. Split rules are configurable per merchant or per product vertical. No post-settlement reconciliation required.

The rebate engine sits on top of the split layer. It calculates volume-based incentives across platform partners and revenue-share structures and distributes them automatically according to each party's agreement. Split calculation, reconciliation, and distribution without manual work.

USDC settlement via Circle is a beta feature. Contact Penumbra for availability.

Split settlement mechanics

A single authorization generates settlement instructions for all parties: the merchant receives their net amount, the platform retains its fee, the marketplace partner receives their share, and any revenue-share vendor receives their cut. All from one transaction event. No nightly reconciliation jobs.

Rebate engine

Volume tiers, rate schedules, and incentive structures are configured per platform partner or vendor. The engine calculates earned rebates against actual processed volume and publishes payout instructions on your configured cycle. Full audit trail per calculation.

Developer Toolchain

272 endpoints. Full sandbox. Webhook replay.

The Penumbra API covers 272 REST endpoints across authentication, routing, risk, settlements, chargebacks, payouts, webhooks, and reporting. Every endpoint is available in the full production-equivalent sandbox environment before you touch live rails.

PSP comparison and statement parsing are analytics tools built for operations teams. PSP comparison shows side-by-side cost, approval rate, and latency across your connected processors. Statement parsing automates the import and reconciliation of processor statements. Both are beta features.

Sandbox environment

Full production-equivalent sandbox. Every API endpoint, every event type, every webhook payload. Simulate processor failures, declined transactions, chargebacks, and split settlement flows without touching live rails. Seeded with realistic test data across all 7 integrated PSP connectors.

Cost analysis and flow mapping

Transaction-level cost attribution: every fee, every interchange category, every processor markup broken out per transaction. Flow mapping visualizes the complete transaction journey from API call through settlement, with timing at each hop.

Beta

PSP comparison and statement parsing

PSP comparison: side-by-side analysis of cost, approval rate, and latency across connected processors. Statement parsing: automated import and line-by-line reconciliation of processor-issued statements. Contact Penumbra for access.

Infrastructure

Built for production. Not a demo.

The Penumbra backend is built on Laravel 13 with PHP 8.3, backed by MySQL 8 for persistence and Redis 7 for caching and queue management. The dashboard runs on Next.js 16. Containerized deployment via Railway. All infrastructure is code-defined, version-controlled, and reproducible.

Data is encrypted in transit with TLS 1.3 and at rest with AES-256. The platform is currently deployed in a single region. Multi-region is on the roadmap.

Technology stack

Laravel 13 PHP 8.3 MySQL 8 Redis 7 Next.js 16 Railway TLS 1.3 AES-256

Compliance posture

Architected to PCI DSS Level 1 controls; formal QSA certification pending. SOC 2 Type II controls implemented; audit engagement pending.

(SOC 2 Type II: In Progress)

HIPAA-ready infrastructure for healthcare payment environments.

The full payment orchestration stack.