i-payout Case Study: Powering Efficient Payouts for Pokémon
In its 28-year history, the Pokémon Company has achieved remarkable success, selling over 448 million units of the game’s series and making each new addition a groundbreaking event in the video game industry. In 2023, the Pokémon Company was recognized as the world’s seventh-largest licensor, generating an impressive $10.8 billion from goods licensed to use the company's IP.
As one of the most globally recognizable brands, Pokémon draws in a massive international audience and player base. Along with accepting payments for products, Pokémon also operates a complex tournament system in which players can win cash, prizes, travel awards, and other valuable rewards.
To keep this system running smoothly while also maintaining optimal efficiency for players, Pokémon needed a payment platform equipped with efficient cross-border capabilities.
Take a look at how i-payout dramatically transformed the payment journey for both Pokémon and its players:
The Challenge: Overcoming the burden of manual payment processing
Prior to partnering with i-payout, Pokémon independently processed payouts for players winning the various prizes and awards offered through the tournament system. When going through the selection process to choose a payment partner, the Pokémon team aimed to address three key concerns:
- Growth: Pokémon tournaments and events have experienced substantial growth, leading to massive increases in payment and player volume.
- Sustainability: Paying players directly through their respective banks became more and more complex as the Pokémon brand diversified its event offerings.
- Efficiency: Maintaining an efficient payment system was hindered by a reliance on players to supply banking information and employees manually working with banks to distribute awards.
The Objective: Consolidating player data for a smoother payment experience
The Pokémon team had one primary objective when selecting a payment partner — consolidation.
By centralizing all player information and data into a core payment platform, Pokémon could establish a much simpler approach to payment processing. Creating an all-in-one solution to enable great optionality on payouts for players provides both Pokemon and players the controls and methods they prefer.
In addition to consolidation capabilities, another key factor influencing Pokémon’s choice of a payment partner was ease of use. Manual data entry and player data collection proved to be major pain points for the Pokémon payment team, making it a necessity to find a partner that could streamline this process and allow players to supply their information directly into the platform system.
The Partner: Introducing i-payout, Pokémon’s payment partner of choice
Following internal research and due diligence processes, Pokémon chose i-payout for its payment needs.
Offering a single API, i-payout provides payout capabilities to both businesses and individuals worldwide, making it an excellent choice for Pokémon’s global player base.
Founded in 2007, i-payout has decades of experience building global payment rails. Through i-payout, Pokémon can send and receive payments both domestically and internationally in local currencies. Additionally, i-payout supports a wide range of payment methods, including:
- Bank transfers
- Card payments
- Wire transfers
- Checks
- Cash pickups
- Gift cards
- Crypto
- Pre-Paid debit cards
- PayPal
- UnionPay
Focusing on Pokémon’s objective of consolidation, as well as the challenge of manual processes, i-payout oversees and automates the bulk of the technically complex aspects of international payments while also providing a central platform for aggregating player payment data.
The Solution: Key features that made i-payout the ideal partner for Pokémon
Since partnering with i-payout, Pokémon has become one of the platform’s most prominent users. Several key capabilities contribute to the successful relationship between i-payout and Pokémon.
The most impactful features that improve Pokémon’s day-to-day payment workflows include:
User-friendliness
The i-payout API offers a highly user-friendly experience that has greatly benefitted both Pokémon’s payment team and their players.
“I find the search very user friendly. It’s not terribly rigid when I need to do auditing or research. It’s very, very simple.”
- Alexa Taylor
Vendor Relations Analyst
With a wide selection of identifiers to add and upload templates to choose from, i-payout users can narrow their research and smooth the upload process.
Availability of forms and documentation
With i-payout, Pokémon can simplify its tax and reporting processes through automated collection capabilities that collect payee documents and tax information.
“It’s pretty straightforward. I think that the availability of forms and documentation is really nice, things like tax forms or documents that players upload or information they provide. I like it, I find it a very easy tool to use.”
- Alexa Taylor
Vendor Relations Analyst
Along with automating information collection and validation processes, i-payout also aids Pokémon in calculating withholdings, tying payouts to per-recipient tax records, and streamlining year-end reporting.
Mass payout uploads
The ability to upload payouts and distribute prepaid cards en masse, as well as calculate withholding tax based on the players, countries, and options selected, has proven immensely beneficial to Pokémon.
“You know, that saves us comparably a lot of time to previously entering something manually and having to pay it out of our system manually, especially again, as our events have grown exponentially.”
- Carrie Eyre
Manager, Accounts Payable
Before partnering with i-payout, the process of individually recording information provided by players for banking and financial purposes was daunting at best. By contrast, once data is formatted, i-payout makes it simple and reliable to upload and calculate, giving Pokémon a high-level overview of what is needed.
The automated nature of i-payout allows the Pokémon to save substantial time, focusing instead on other objectives and opportunities to scale within the business framework.
The Results: Delivering satisfactory payment experiences to Pokémon players
Pokémon can attest to the i-payout platform’s ability to enhance payment experiences.
Age is a key factor in the quality of payment experiences across Pokémon’s player base. For players over the age of 18 with a strong understanding of financial laws and standards, Pokémon provides a seamless and satisfactory experience for making payments and receiving awards.
As for underage players relying on parents or guardians to handle payment processes, Pokémon and i-payout work collaboratively to resolve any issues that occur in real time. Though dealing with players of different ages and navigating financial processes simultaneously can be a daunting task, i-payout aids the Pokémon team in handling its growing and increasingly global customer base.
“There’s different regulations for banks, and you’re relying on information that sometimes comes from customers across all ages and regions. It’s advisable to, as much as possible, process through a system like i-payout, because I do think it’s very daunting when you’re dealing with a front-facing sort of PR situation.”
- Carrie Eyre
Manager, Accounts Payable
In addition to boosting payout efficiency while also ensuring thorough and accurate payment processing, i-payout also provides Pokémon with comprehensive documentation for tax and compliance purposes.
The shift in technical responsibility creates an operational ease that allows the Pokémon team to focus on what matters. Through i-payout’s consolidated platform, Pokémon has all the elements needed to offer efficient and streamlined experiences to customers and players.
Looking Ahead: Improving payment tech literacy among players
When looking into current pain points in Pokémon’s payout system, a notable issue revolved around a lack of user awareness of how to use the system, especially among parents and international players.
As Pokémon’s team has noted, the i-payout platform offers an intuitive and easy-to-use interface. Moving forward, one primary objective Pokémon aims to achieve is increasing player literacy surrounding payment technology to ensure players enjoy the full advantages of i-payout’s platform.
Together, Pokémon and i-payout strive to achieve a globally accessible payment system that encourages recurring use and welcomes international players.
Build Autonomous Payment Experiences with i-payout
As an autonomous payment technology provider, i-payout offers a revolutionary approach to global payouts. Through the use of AI and blockchain, i-payout increases financial transparency while also supporting high-growth scalability, resulting in a more efficient overall experience.
In addition to leveraging AI integrations, i-payout also provides a broad selection of payment partners to help deliver your payments to players in the most efficient and cost-effective means possible.
Becoming a forward-thinking enterprise requires payment innovation.
