Category: Best Practices for Merchants

PCI COMPLIANCE (PCI DSS)

PCI compliance applies to any company, organization or merchant of any size or transaction volume that either accepts, stores or transmits cardholder data.

Any merchant accepting payments directly from the customer via credit or debit card must be Compliant. The merchant themselves are therefore responsible for becoming Compliant, as the deadline for the merchant becomes overdue.

Understanding and knowing the details of Payment Card Industry Compliance can help you better prepare your business. Because failing and waiting to become compliant or ignoring them, could end up being an expensive mistake.

The VISA regulations have to adhere to the PCI standard forms as part of the operating regulations. The regulations signed when you open an account at the bank. The rules under which merchants are allowed to operate merchant accounts.

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) is a proprietary information security standard for organizations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes including Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB.

 

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, Payment Card Industry PCI Security, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: American Express, cardholder, compliance, credit, customer, data, debit card, Discover, jcb, MasterCard, merchant, Payment Card Industry, payments, PCI, transaction, visa

AVOIDING CHARGEBACK

Avoiding Chargeback!  

Always ask for the card security codes:

• CVV2 for Visa
• CVC2 for MasterCard
• CID for Discover and American Express.

Always use the Address Verification Service (AVS) and only process sales after receiving a positive AVS response.

Avoid using voice authorizations, unless absolutely necessary.

Billing descriptor must set up properly and shows your phone number. Customer can contact you directly if there is an issue,

Consider using the associations’ 3-D secure services: 

• Verified by Visa
• SecureCode by MasterCard
• A 3-D transaction confirmation proves card ownership and therefore protects you from certain types of chargeback. Another additional layer of security for online credit and debit card transactions.

Customers must be informed by email when a refund has been issued or a membership service has been cancelled. Notify them of the date the refund was processed and provide a reference number.

Make available customer support phone number and email address on your website so that customers can contact you directly. You need to meet this requirement before opening a merchant account.

Make it easy for your customers to discontinue a recurring plan, either membership or subscription. Finally, have a no-questions-asked policy.

Notify customers by email and indicate that their cards will be charge each transaction.

Obtain a confirmation of delivery for each shipment.

Process refunds as quickly as possible.

Secure an authorization approval for every transaction.

Secure customers’ written or electronic signatures, for recurring payments or monthly fees. Giving you express permission to charge their cards on a regular basis.

Terms and conditions must be clearly stated on your website. Customers must acknowledge acceptance by clicking on an Agree or a similar affirmative button.

Transaction amount must never exceed the authorized amount.

Reauthorize transaction before settling it if an authorization approval is more than seven days old.

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security

TERMINAL EVOLUTION

Terminal or credit card machines are used for processing debit and credit card transactions. Therefore, are often integrated into a Point of Sale System.

Electronic Authorizations – merchants had the choice of calling in for an authorization or imprinting their transactions, but many businesses opted voice authorization only on larger transactions because of the long waiting time for authorizing transaction over the phone.

Manual Imprinters – are considered a great backup processing method. Although time consuming and did not offer the speed or instant transfer capabilities, this imprinters are still widely used.

Point of Sale Terminals: POS emerged in 1979, which was a turning point in the credit card processing industry. As a result,

Visa introduced a bulky electronic data capturing terminal. The first of credit card machine or terminal as we know them today. It has greatly reduced the time required to process a credit card.

In the same year, MasterCharge became MasterCard and credit cards were replaced to include a magnetic information stripe which now has become EMV/chip and PIN.

The Future: There’s a lot of room for advancement when it comes to Credit card processing technology. Increasing processing speed, reliability and security are driving forces behind processing technology advancement.

Today’s credit card terminals are faster and more reliable with convenient new capabilities including contactless and Mobile NFC acceptance. The processing industry will definitely be adapting new technologies in the near future and has a lot to look forward to.

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Near Field Communication, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: chip, contactless, credit card, debit, EMV, mobile, nfc, PIN, point of sale, Security, terminal, transactions, visa

VALUABLE FEATURES AND BENEFITS

National Transaction offer valuable features and benefits, if you want to improve your business’s productivity, you should look for the following features below, that you need from your Electronic Payments provider.

Advanced Security Options – 6 out of 10 small businesses close within six months of a card data breach, it is important that Point-of-Sale devices should have appropriate security measures, particularly EMV, encryption and tokenization. NTC offer Safe-T for Small and Medium Businesses and Safe-T for Large Businesses. The Top-tier security is important on your business’s data especially customer information, consider adding additional authentication procedures.

Fast Payment Processing – first step is having up-to-date technology, because some customers might leave, the sooner you have the money processed by your provider, the bigger and stronger your business can become. NTC is adept at administering payments quickly and efficiently. We can provide regular funding or next day funding.

Feature Flexibility –  obtaining the features you need from your payment services provider is very important. Look for a provider that appropriately addresses your payment concerns.

Mobile Payment Processing – NTC offer Virtual Merchant/Converge Mobile that gives you the ability to accept payments using your smartphone or tablet anywhere you go. Furthermore, the app works with most Apple and Android mobile devices. Accept a key-entered transactions or swipe cards using an encryption reader. You can now take chip card payments using Ingenico iCMP PIN Pad or the new RP457c card reader.

Reliable Customer Support – NTC is available 24/7, the phones are answered by humans and not automated systems. You got support with your hardware, answer questions and guide you to better understand the process. Customer support is the most important feature of any business partnership you make.  At NTC we are very passionate about that.

Up-to-Date Tech – futuristic features, like mobile payment abilities, EMV/NFC, contactless payments are worth investing. Modern consumers are generally more familiar with up-to-date payment systems. Seeing a payment service provider offer a swipe-only terminal should be a red flag, because the recent regulations require merchants to have EMV to provide better data security.

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, Electronic Payments, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale, Smartphone Tagged with: Breach, card data, card reader, chip card, contactless payments, data, EMV, encryption, merchants, mobile, mobile payment, nfc, payments, Payments provider, point of sale, provider, Security, service provider, smartphone, swipe, tablet, terminal, tokenization, transactions

STORING CREDIT CARD SECURELY

 

Storing credit card data for recurring billing are discouraged.

But many feels storing is necessary in order to facilitate recurring payments.

Using a third party vault provider to store credit card data for recurring billing is the best way.

It helps reduce or eliminate the need for electronically stored cardholder data while still maintaining current business processes.

For recurring billing a token can be use, by utilizing a vault. The risk is removed from your possession.

Modern payment gateways allow card tokenization.

Any business that storing data needs to review and follow PCI DSS requirement in order for the electronic storage of cardholder data to be PCI compliant.

On the primary account number, an appropriate encryption will be applied. In this situation, the numbers in the electronic file should be encrypted either at the column level, file level or disk level.

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security Tagged with: billing, cardholder, credit card, data, payment gateways, payments, PCI, recurring, token, tokenization

INGENICO RP457c NOW AVAILABLE!

Ingenico RP457c card reader is now available at NTC for $75.00 plus encryption and shipping!

NTC are pleased to announced the launch of Converge Mobile 1.3, which includes support for the new Ingenico RP457c.

An all-in-one card reader that accepts:

• Mag stripe
• chip card
• contactless payments including mobile wallets

Customers can utilize audio jack to connect the device to their either smartphone, tablet or connect via Bluetooth.

In addition to the converge Mobile portfolio, Ingenico RP457c is a lower price point for customers who are cost sensitive. It offers the same payment flexibility as the iCMP.

Both RP457c’s and iCMP devices also offer encryption technology, adding another layer of security to help protect card data at the point of entry and throughout the payment lifecycle.

One key difference is that iCMP is a PIN pad that supports chip & PIN as well as debit PIN transactions, while the PR457c is a card reader only; therefore chip and signature and signature debit are supported on this device.

For your electronic payment needs or to purchase the device give us a call now 888-996-2273 www.nationaltransaction.com

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Smartphone Tagged with: card data, card reader, Chip & PIN, chip and signature, contactless payments, customers, mobile wallets, payment, PIN pad, Security, signature debit, smartphone, transactions

MULTI AND DYNAMIC CURRENCY

Multi Currency Conversion (MCC):

• In addition to 100+ supported currencies and all transactions autosettle at 6pm (eastern) daily.
• Customer is unaware of the converted currency, also customer may not opt-out at the point of sale.
• Conversion occurs between the point of sale and settlement.
• E-commerce only and no merchant rebate.
• Price listed in customer’s currency conversion also Supported by Internet Secure or direct certification.

Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC):                                        

• Customer is aware of the Conversion Currency, also customer may opt-out at the point of sale.
• Conversion occurs at the point of sale and five supported currencies less than MCC.
• Merchants may choose settlement method and time in addition to merchant rebate up to 100bp.
• Price listed in merchant’s currency conversion.
• For Retail, Restaurant, MOTO and E-commerce.
• Supported by terminals, via Warp and Virtual Merchant.

For more information give us a call at 888-996-2273 or visit our website: www.nationaltransaction.com 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, e-commerce & m-commerce, Mail Order Telephone Order Tagged with: customer, e-commerce, merchant, moto, Multi Currency Conversion, point of sale, terminals, transactions, virtual merchant

INTERCHANGE FEE AND CATEGORY

Interchange fee are transactions for payment from either the Acquirer or Merchant Processor to the Card Issuer. Therefore, it represents the fees paid by the merchant acquirer to the Card Issuer.

At the time transaction is exchanged fees are paid and vary also based on the method of processing your transaction. Processing a hand-keyed transaction is therefore expensive than a card-swiped transaction because you don’t have the physical card and its associated risk.

Rates may apply to your transactions, also depending on the method of processing and the qualification assigned by the Card associations.

Rate qualification criteria:

• Card associations consider the card product used in the transaction
• How the transaction data is entered?
• The time of settlement
• Time of authorization

Interchange Category Based on Card Type:

• Credit
• Debit
• Rewards purchasing

Industry Type:

• Retail
• E-commerce

Qualification Elements:

• Swiped card
• Key entered

When you settle your transactions each day, Acquirer or Merchant Processor like NTC routes them to the Card Associations (Visa, MasterCard, Discover) and debit networks through Interchange.

As a result, Visa, MasterCard and Discover (Card Associations and Debit Networks) establish the rules and manage the Interchange of all transactions.

For your Electronic Payment needs give us a call at 888-996-2273 we are open 24/7 or visit our website www.nationaltransaction.com for more information.

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants

ASTA Global Convention (AGC) 2016

ASTA Global Convention (AGC) in Reno!

We Look forward seeing you at Booth # 92. Please stop by and say hello! September 25-28.

We offer ASTA Travel Agents opportunity to get paid. 100% next day while you can be your own host agency with No Reserve.

Our expertise is Travel, and we have been in this industry for over 13 years. There is No sign up fee or cancellation fee. TRAMS Sabre Solution integration or any back office GDS system.

We can perform a free statement analysis in addition, to see if we can help reduce your current fees and charges. We will also Meet or Beat other processor’s rates and fees!

If you would like to Make an appointment with us during the ASTA EVENT, please contact or email Elaine Zamora at 888-996-2273 Extension 1111 elaine@nationaltransction.com

Please feel free to visit our website: www.nationaltransaction.com www.ziebest.com/national/ www.turnaroundstripdown.com

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: travel, travel agents

PARENT COMPANY OF NTC

 

 

Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: credit card, credit processing, merchant, terminal, transactions