Royal College of Surgeons

Pharmaceutical | Keeping critical payments running as Barclaycard ePDQ retired

When Barclaycard ePDQ reached end of service, the Royal College of Surgeons needed to migrate fast without risking exam bookings, memberships or events. ClerksWell delivered a Smartpay Fuse integration ahead of the deadline using a focused, discovery led approach.

The Challenge

The Royal College of Surgeons of England is a professional membership body and registered charity supporting surgeons and dental professionals through education, examinations, membership and events.

The RCS website relies on online payments for exams, memberships, courses and events that surgeons depend on at key moments in their careers. Any interruption would have had immediate operational impact. With Barclaycard ePDQ scheduled for decommissioning on 31 March 2026, RCS faced a hard stop.

After this date, online and MOTO transactions would no longer be processed. Ensuring continuity of payments was business critical.

RCS had selected Barclaycard Smartpay Fuse as their replacement platform but the migration was not a simple technical swap. The existing ePDQ implementation relied on API-first integrations that allowed payment journeys to be embedded directly into bespoke user interfaces.

Smartpay Fuse takes a different approach, using hosted and embedded payment components delivered through Unified Checkout. While the customer remains on the RCS website, responsibility for card capture, authentication and payment security sits with the gateway itself. This reduced PCI scope but required a rethink of how payment journeys were structured and supported across technical and finance teams.

The Approach

ClerksWell’s priority was to remove risk early by confirming how Smartpay Fuse would change payment behaviour before committing to delivery.

ClerksWell started with a short, focused discovery phase where the team reviewed the existing ePDQ integration in detail, including transaction flows, API usage and how payment states were handled across the platform.

This was mapped directly against Smartpay Fuse integration options to identify where behaviour would change and where user experience or operational processes would be affected. The discovery work confirmed that the main shift would be away from in-page card capture towards an embedded Unified Checkout, requiring changes to handoffs, redirects and confirmation flows.

Following discovery, ClerksWell produced a clear scope covering the Smartpay Fuse integration, required UI changes and supporting configuration. Delivery was carried out in close collaboration with RCS and Barclaycard, with regular checkpoints to resolve queries and confirm configuration choices early.

The core implementation was completed in 25 days, after which the solution was handed over for user acceptance testing and review by internal finance stakeholders. No functional issues were identified during testing.

The Impact

The Smartpay Fuse integration went live ahead of the ePDQ shutdown deadline, preventing disruption to online payments across exams, memberships and events in March 2026.

The implementation introduced a configuration-led payment model, with payment methods, authentication behaviour and checkout presentation managed through the Smartpay Fuse gateway rather than hard-coded application logic. This simplifies ongoing maintenance and reduces the need for future development when payment behaviour changes.

The revised checkout flow created a clearer separation between checkout initiation, payment authorisation and final confirmation. Explicit transaction states and gateway callbacks improved reliability and reduced the risk of duplicate or incomplete transactions. Failure scenarios were easier to detect and support.

Smartpay Fuse also enabled modern payment methods including Apple Pay, Google Pay and Click to Pay through an embedded on-site experience. By using tokenised credentials and biometric authentication where available, the new checkout reduced friction for customers while keeping sensitive payment data outside RCS systems.

This project shows how a discovery led approach enables controlled, deadline driven migrations where failure is not an option.

130% increase

Payment & checkout completion

By simplifying the checkout journey with VISA Unified Checkout, customers experienced a faster, more intuitive payment flow. Reducing friction at the final step and driving a measurable uplift in payment and checkout completion rates.

1 month

End-to-end project delivery

The project covered discovery, solution design, sandbox integration, and end‑to‑end testing. Close collaboration across multiple applications and teams ensured seamless synchronisation and a smooth transition to production.

Business‑led

Control without code

Unified Checkout settings were designed to be configuration‑driven, giving business teams the ability to manage payment options, rules, and experiences without code changes.

Secure Payments

PCI SAQ‑A compliant, tokenised payments

This approach reduces PCI scope while offering customers trusted, familiar ways to pay without compromising performance or usability.

Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Automation 01 950X570

Why Barclaycard Snippet 16 9Largemedium Quality

Industry Perspective

“If every customer I worked with approached the migration project the way you have, I’d be sleeping a lot easier. Hats off to you all, this has been a perfectly run project from start to finish.”

Jimmy Little

Gateway Technical Consultant, Barclaycard Payments