Transaction As A Service has come a long way when we view the technology landscape through a lens of deep experience.
Having navigated the industry since the era when software was shipped on 8-inch floppy disks, we have watched—and helped shape—the way enterprises buy, deploy, and pay for technology.
We moved through the age of physical distribution, survived the era of perpetual on-premise licenses, and embraced the great migration to the Cloud.
Now, we are witnessing what we believe is the final and most profound shift: the complete commoditisation of the business transaction itself.
The future of business efficiency does not belong to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). It belongs to Transaction-as-a-Service (TaaS).
The Heavy Lift of the Physical Era
In the 1980s, software was a tangible asset. We pressed floppy disks and shipped shrink-wrapped boxes with price tags in the tens of thousands.
For the customer, the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) was punishing. A single installation of an early accounting suite could require 27 floppy disks and days of professional services.
While the marginal cost of the disk was low, the operational friction was enormous: hardware costs, maintenance contracts at 20% of the list price, and the constant threat of obsolescence.
The Era of Racks and Perpetual Seats
By the late 90s, the CD-ROM replaced the floppy, and the data centre replaced the back office. However, the economic model remained rigid. Corporations paid seven-figure upfront fees for “named user” or “concurrent seat” licenses.
This era was defined by CapEx bloat. A typical ERP rollout required millions in hardware, database licenses, and years of consulting. The vendor secured a steady annuity through maintenance fees, while the customer was locked into upgrade cycles they could neither afford nor escape.
SaaS and the First Great Unbundling
Then came the cloud revolution. Salesforce, NetSuite, and Workday proved that software could be rented. The unit of consumption shifted from the “seat” to the “user/month.”
The entry price collapsed from thousands of pounds to tens of pounds. Infrastructure moved off the balance sheet (thanks to AWS and Azure), and pricing finally began to track usage rather than hypothetical capacity.
However, SaaS left a massive, undigested cost on the table: the business transaction itself.
Transaction-As-A-Service (TaaS) – The Final Frontier
Every piece of enterprise software exists to move money, data, or commitments. Invoicing, payroll, procurement, trade finance—every workflow ends in a transaction that must be reconciled, settled, and paid for.
Historically, this transaction layer was expensive, slow, and riddled with friction (payment gateways, SWIFT fees, and manual reconciliation).
Today, through the convergence of Open Banking, real-time ledgers, and instant-payment rails (Faster Payments, SEPA Instant), the transaction has become a utility.
Transaction-as-a-Service (TaaS) treats the transaction exactly like Amazon treats compute: an on-demand, pay-as-you-go service with guaranteed availability and transparent pricing.
The Financial Case for TaaS
For the C-Suite, the economics of TaaS are irresistible when compared to legacy models:
The Invoice-to-Pay Cycle: Previously costing a mid-sized company £7–£12 in bank fees and reconciliation effort, this now costs 8–18 pence end-to-end on a TaaS fabric.
Loan Origination: A consumer loan origination that once carried a £35–£70 all-in cost can now be executed for £1.20.
Cross-Border B2B: Payments that attracted 3–7% FX fees and correspondent-bank drag now settle in seconds for 0.4% total.
Why This Shift is Inevitable
- Marginal Cost Approaches Zero: Once regulatory licenses and Open Banking rails are in place, the cost of an additional transaction is microscopic.
- Risk is Data-Driven: We no longer rely on blunt fees to cover risk. Machine learning models operating at scale allow for risk pooling that is dramatically more efficient.
- Native Automation: The transaction engine is embedded. The same API call that approves an expense triggers the payment, the reconciliation, the VAT report, and the FX hedge—simultaneously.
Conclusion: The New Unit of Value
In the 1980s, the unit of software was the box. In the 1990s, it was the seat. In the 2010s, it was the user/month. In the 2020s and beyond, the unit of enterprise technology is the transaction.
The winners of the next decade will not be the companies selling the most software licenses. They will be the organisations that process the most transactions at the lowest all-in cost.
At DMT Solutions, we are not just watching this shift; we are building the infrastructure for it. We are moving from the era of “renting software” to an era of friction-free, low-cost transactional utility.
The future is not another SaaS category. The future is Transaction-as-a-Service—and it is already here.
Book a call with the team today to get started.
