August 25th, 2017 by Elma Jane
A travel merchant account helps you manage all your transactions. It also allows you to integrate into your booking software; plus, there are more features that you get to process payments in a secure environment.
Virtual Merchant Payment Terminal
This is a web-based system that allows you to view processed payments in real-time. You can access it using any web browser, and the transactions are conducted over a secure and encrypted connection.
Customers get receipts for their payments via email once the transaction is complete. You can also handle installments and recurring payments online. It also accepts different payment methods, including gift cards, electronic checks, and credit and debit cards.
Loyalty Programs
With a travel merchant account, you are able to reward your loyal travel customers. You can personalize your loyalty program for customers basing on their behavior. A loyalty program can offer free products or discounts on certain tour or travel packages.
Also, you can make gift cards part of your program. With these cards, you can simply load them with any dollar amount and present them to your customers. Plus, they’re re-loadable and offer a great way of advertising. These programs can go a long way in boosting your customer’s loyalty.
Trams & Sabre Integration
If you’re using Sabre Travel Network for agency services, you can easily integrate your account into Sabre to improve your travel options. This integration allows you to provide convenient payment methods for customers searching for cruise lines, hotel properties, car rental services, and airlines.
Also, for those using Trams for accounting and reporting, NTC travel merchant account lets you make a simple integration. In the long run, you are able to focus on growing your travel agency and offer quality services to your clients.
Mobile Processing
Accepts payments fast and on-the-go with mobile processing solutions that are PCI compliant. With this service, you only need to use a mobile device card reader to swipe cards.
Mobile payment processing allows you to use your own iOS or Android device with a free mobile app which you can integrate with your account to manage transactions.
Offering a convenient and smooth payment methods to your clients is one of the ways to grow your business. National Transaction Corporation merchant account, offers secured travel payment processing services e-Pay, to process your payments; with no delays and at a very competitive rates.
Also, you can accept payments from anywhere and get 100 percent funding. Faster deposits for bookings, which can occur as quick as the next business day.
To speak to our travel payment consultant, call now 888-996-2273
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: card reader, credit, debit cards, electronic checks, Gift Cards, Loyalty Programs, mobile, payment processing, payments, PCI, swipe, terminal, transactions, travel agency, Travel Merchant, virtual merchant
December 14th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Samsung Pay now supports 50 popular merchant gift cards as well as a gift card store that enables users to buy gift cards from supported merchants, within the Samsung Pay app. According to press release, more gift card options will be added to Samsung Pay in the coming months. Samsung Pay is bringing consumers an easier way to use gift cards. With Samsung Pay, you can easily carry your gift cards with you everywhere you go and not to have to worry about a card going unspent.
http://paymentweek.com/2015-12-14-samsung-pay-adds-support-for-popular-gift-cards-9116/
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Smartphone Tagged with: cards, Gift Cards, merchant
November 12th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Here are some tips for protecting gifts cards to accessing them via phone and replacing gift cards that don’t work:
Remedy for gift cards that don’t work.
You need the activation receipt, they just don’t activate them correctly. With that slip of paper, a gift card giver can at least prove the card was activated and they can take it back.
Returning a malfunctioning gift card? Deal with the company that issued it, that means if it’s a store gift card, take it back to the store, and if it’s a bank-branded gift card, call the toll-free number on the back of the card.
Shield some gift cards from theft and loss.
In the past, if lost or stolen, they were gone permanently. These days, with bank-branded cards, you can register the cards with the issuer to get protection from loss or theft. The funds will be replaced if it’s lost or stolen.
It works for some retail gift cards, too. To register a gift card, call the toll-free number or visit the website listed on the back of the card. You’ll supply the card number, and likely the PIN and expiration date of the card, along with your name and address.
Storing gift cards on a phone is becoming more common.
More and more gift cards are being redeemed through mobile technology. Some apps allow shoppers to take a picture of the front of the card and store it, along with the recorded balance.
Stretch more out of gift cards.
When is a $50 gift card worth more than $50? When you use it online to score a discount or free shipping.
If you’re making a purchase with a gift card, shop both the brick-and-mortar location and the store’s website to see if one of them will offer a discount, free delivery or free shipping. Most retailers have moved to this digital-and-physical environment.
Want to boost the value of that gift card you just received? Snag a coupon to go with it. With a few minutes of searching, you could increase your gift-buying power by 10 or 20 percent.
There are two kinds of gift cards and (generally) two menus of fees.
With cards that carry a credit card brand name, you often pay a purchase fee. In return, you can use them any place that accepts that card brand.
Buy a gift card at or for a particular retailer, and you pay only the face value of the card. But you can only use it at that specified retailer, and sometimes at affiliated businesses.
Majority of retailer gift cards don’t have expiration dates, activation fees or dormancy fees.
Under the federal Credit CARD Act of 2009, gift cards have to be good for at least five years from the purchase date, but the best advice is to spend them as soon as possible.
Treat them gently.
Plastic gift cards still use magnetic stripes, like pre-chip credit cards. Those stripes can occasionally get demagnetized.
Some gift cards include a scratch-off panel. If you use something too sharp you can accidently remove the numbers underneath, then it’s no good to you.
Some gift cards are made of paper or thin cardboard, another reason to put them in a separate envelope.
According to research from the National Retail Federation, gift cards are the No. 1 requested present 9 years in a row.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: card, credit card, Gift Cards
November 6th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Money 20/20 was billed as the largest convention in payments history held in Las Las Vegas, during the last week of October 2015.
The show delivered well-organized, incisive content such as Europay, MasterCard and Visa (EMV) migration, mobile payments, security and omnichannel commerce.
20/20 Highlights
- Alternative lending and credit.
- Bill Payments, Financial Services: Newly released market research provides insights into the future of household bill payments, millennials, and financial services.
- Connected Commerce and the Mobile Enterprise: The Internet of Things is changing the way that consumers interact with their environments. Analysts predict up to 30 billion interactive devices will be connected to the Internet by 2020, noting that many of these devices will be payment-enabled.
- Marketing and Customer Experience: Most marketers agree that the era of demographic profiles and pull marketing is over. Retailers, card brands and information technology professionals looked at the customer experience in the digital world. They explored new marketing practices, trends in e-commerce and mobile commerce, and big data findings in other industries that may be useful to financial service companies.
- Mobile Banking: Banks are undergoing an incremental transformation as they learn to compete with nonbank lenders, balance cash management with digital currencies, and shift from local branches to online and mobile forms of banking.
- Mobile Payments: Payments analysts reviewed Apple Pay a year after its launch and a range of other mobile wallet offerings, and they speculated on how third-party wallets will impact bank apps.
- Payment Card Evolution: Payment card issuers, processors and network service providers analyzed the changing look, feel and role of payment cards in the greater ecosystem. Discussions ranged from card linking to the coolness factor of gift cards to how e-cards are expanding market opportunities.
- POS, Processing and Open Platforms: Executive roundtables with leading acquirers explored front-end and back-end technology and omnichannel commerce for small and midsize businesses.
- Regulatory Landscape: Increased federal and state oversight has had a significant impact on the financial services sector.
- Security: Security analysts made in-depth presentations on tokenization, end-to-end encryption, and secure methods of authentication designed to protect consumers, merchants and industry stakeholders from cybercriminals. Many agreed that EMV implementation in the United States will drive fraudsters to the card-not-present space. They discussed how EMV adoption has changed fraud patterns in other regions and offered examples of best practices geared toward identifying and preventing electronic payment fraud.
More than 10,000 attendees and 3,000 exhibitors from 75 countries attended Money20/20. Financial services professionals from mobile, retail, marketing services, data and technology met at what show organizers described as the intersection of mobile, retail, marketing services, data and technology.
The years to come will be a turning point in the payments sector, and with the recent shift to EMV, the entire conference confirmed that all the players are more interested than ever in finding innovative solutions for combating online fraud.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: Apple Pay, big data, bill payments, card-not-present, e-commerce, electronic payment, EMV, EuroPay, financial services, Gift Cards, MasterCard, merchants, Mobile Payments, mobile wallet, payments, POS, processors, Service providers, tokenization, visa
October 13th, 2015 by Elma Jane
It is difficult to believe that many businesses still do not accept credit or debit cards for payments, while most customers preferred using cards for the following reasons.
- Doesn’t want to carry cash.
- Security and Protection offered by card issuers.
- Desire to earn reward points.
Some of the many advantages for businesses that accept credit card payments include:
Easy and cost efficient – credit card processing has become a highly competitive industry. NTC offers the latest in EMV and NFC technologies that allows businesses to accept contactless payment like Apple and Android Pay. NTC integrates with most POS systems.
Essential for online sales – internet selling is growing. The Internet makes it possible for a small business in a remote location to offer its products to potential customers throughout the nation and even across the world, almost all of those transactions require a credit or debit card.
Increases revenue – people like the convenience and security of paying with a credit or debit card. In fact, 66 percent of point-of-sale transactions use credit, debit or gift cards.
Merchant services accelerate cash flow – credit card transactions process quickly, with proceeds generally available in a bank account within two days or less. That eliminates the time it normally takes checks to clear. It also reduces or eliminates billing and the time spent waiting to receive payment checks from customers.
Reduce transaction risks – Check fraud remains a major problem for U.S. businesses, 77% of businesses were victims of check fraud, only 34% experienced credit card fraud and 92% said they believe new EMV chip and pin, credit cards will significantly reduce fraud at the point of sale.
Setting up a merchant account for your business is as simple as contacting a merchant service provider. A merchant service provider process payments and make sure the money is appropriately withdrawn from a credit card account and placed into the business’s merchant account.
For more details about setting up an account give us a call now! at 888-996-2273.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: (POS) systems, Android Pay, Apple, Chip and PIN, contactless payment, credit card, debit cards, EMV, Gift Cards, merchant, merchant account, merchant service provider, merchant services, NFC technologies, payments, point of sale
September 11th, 2015 by Elma Jane
National Transaction Terminals with NFC (near field communication) Capability
To accept Apple Pay transactions at your business, you will need to adopt point-of-sale devices with NFC/contactless readers.
National Transaction offer a range of options to suite your specific needs:
Tablet solutions: Talech with iCMP device and NCR Silver.
Short-range wireless terminals for pay at the table: Bring the point-of-sale to your customers. Ideal for table-service restaurants, curbside pick-up, salons and more.
These terminals are all-in-one solutions with an integrated PIN Pad and printer. The short range terminals use secure, encrypted Bluetooth technology, allowing only the base and terminal to talk to each other, while also monitoring channels to prevent interference from other devices.
The Bluetooth terminals we offer are: VeriFone VX680B and Ingenico iWL220B. (Both Bluetooth Wireless)
Long-range wireless (cellular/mobile) terminals: Have a long-life battery and compact design, which allows you to process transactions anywhere your customers are ideal for deliveries, kiosks and more.
These terminals are all-in-one solutions with an integrated PIN Pad and printer. Phone lines and internet connections are not required to take advantage of our mobile payment solutions.
The GPRS wireless terminals we offer are: VeriFone VX680G and Ingenico iWL250G. (Both GPRS Wireless)
Countertop terminals:
Ingenico iCT250 – has a “magic box” cable management system that prevents cable tangle and clutter. The terminal boasts a color display for improved readability and ease of use.
Verifone VX520 – has a built-in secure software authentication process which prevents unauthorized software applications from being downloaded.
Ingenico iCT220 with iPP320 external PIN pad – has a “magic box” cable management system that prevents cable tangle and clutter, along with a black and white screen for crisp visual clarity. Combine with an iPP320 for a consumer- facing solution to support contactless payments. (Note: the iCT220 device only supports contactless transactions when connected to this external PIN pad).
Whether you need a stand-alone POS terminal, want to take advantage of your existing tablet or PC, or require a wireless or mobile solution, National Transaction Corp., offers numerous user-friendly options. No matter how your customer wants to pay, NTC will help you enable quick and easy transactions from Traditional credit and debit cards, gift cards, smart cards (or EMV), mobile or digital wallets like Apple Pay and eCommerce or MOTO transactions.
Start growing your business quickly by accepting all kinds of credit card payments and debit cards. Choose a state-of-the-art solution so you can accept payment in store or on your mobile device. With transparent pricing, live customer support, no cancellation fees and a secure platform, you’ll be confident you made the right partner for your business with National Transaction Corp.
Learn how easy it can be to accept any contactless or Apple Pay transactions.
Click here for more information about Apple Pay.
For Merchant Account Setup 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, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: Apple Pay transactions, contactless readers, Countertop terminals, credit card, debit cards, Digital wallets, ecommerce, Gift Cards, mobile payment, moto, Near Field Communication, nfc, PIN pad, point of sale, POS terminal, smart cards, wireless terminals
August 20th, 2015 by Elma Jane
We live in a nearly cashless society. Accepting credit cards is a requirement in today’s business trend.
What are the benefits of accepting both credit and debit at your business? Check out NTC’s List.
Convey a sense of trust.
When launching a business, you won’t have the credibility of a well-established company, so gaining instant credibility by promoting that you’re able to accept credit cards will help your business evolve.
You’ll be able to acquire respectability and strong customer relationships, compared to companies that don’t accept credit cards.
The more payment options, the better the sales.
Why limit your customers to just cash? The number of people carrying cash decreases every day, accepting credit cards will open the door to more opportunities.
Credit Cards drive e-commerce.
Nearly every transaction made on the Internet is paid for by some sort of payment card, be it credit, debit or gift cards, so having a successful online presence and creating an excellent revenue stream is crucial for the growth of your business.
Plastic is better than a check.
Because of the high level of diligence done by Credit Card Processors, it’s less likely that you’ll be a victim of fraud when compared to accepting checks. Accepting one bad check can make a business susceptible to spending valuable time dealing with banks and trying to find the customer to get reimbursed.
National Transaction can help you with your Merchant account set up, making the application process as seamless as possible.
Our goal is to create a smooth, fast and secured transaction process, leading to a better relationship with your customers.
Customers tend not to hesitate with convenient, nice to have purchases when they use a credit card compared to harder-to-part-with cash.
For Merchant Account Setup give us a call at 888-996-2273 or visit our website www.nationaltransaction.com
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: checks, credit cards, debit, e-commerce, Gift Cards, merchant, merchant account, payment card, processors
September 18th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Americans love gift cards, but many of those pieces of plastic go partially or entirely unused. Some are lost or forgotten. Others simply are ignored once the balance drops to a few dollars or less.
A gift card’s unused value…known in industry parlance as spillage or breakage…long has meant big profits for the gift card industry .
But the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, better known simply as the Credit CARD Act, tightened rules on retailers, making it more difficult for stores to cancel unused cards or charge inactivity fees. That prevents retailers from quickly cashing in on breakage.
In addition, savvy consumers are catching on and appear to be finding ways to avoid losing breakage while getting the most out of their gift cards.
According to the most recent figures, about 1 percent of the total value of gift cards was predicted to go unused in 2013. That’s down from a record high of 10 percent in 2007. Some of the reduction in breakage is a result of growing cardholder realization that even though there’s only $2.12 on gift card, they got to find a way to use it.
However, even with the decline in breakage, around $1 billion worth of gift cards will be lost to fees and expiration dates or misplaced, shoved in a drawer or otherwise neglected this year. That’s a huge amount of money that consumers will not be able to use toward a new shirt, stuffed animal or bicycle.
Retailers love when people use gift cards because studies show that most customers spend more in the store than the card is worth. Breakage makes gift cards even more profitable: An estimated $127 billion in gift cards will be sold in 2014, even a small percentage of unused cards boost a company’s bottom line.
Those profits make it feasible for retailers to make some consumer-friendly moves, such as selling gift cards at a discount. However, most of the money goes toward other endeavors.
Wal-Mart may have a billion dollars (in unused gift cards) sitting there. Wal-Mart could go out and build 30 new superstores without borrowing a penny. They know those gift cards will come in eventually, but for now, they have the use of that money.
Ways to make sure you’re not ‘breakage’
The longer you let a card sit untapped, the less likely you are to use it. Here are eight ways to make sure your gift cards are not lost to breakage:
Give again. Instead of letting that last two bucks on a card go to waste, use it to make a donation. Stockpile cards and combine them into higher-value gift cards that are donated to the needy.
A Gift Card Giver founder, got the idea when he asked a group of acquaintances how many had unused gift cards sitting in their wallets. They literally started pulling out gift cards from their wallets, everyone had one.
The Gift Card Giver founder offered to redistribute the unused cards to the needy and a new nonprofit was born.
Give low-end cards as gifts. To make sure your gift card doesn’t languish in someone else’s wallet, consider purchasing cards at Walgreens and Wendy’s instead of Nordstrom and Saks. Practical gift cards, such as those for fast-food chains and discount retailers are used faster than cards to fine dining establishments and pricey department stores.
Corral your cards. Make sure you can quickly locate your cards by storing them all in the same place.
If you have too many cards to tuck into your wallet, stowing them in a durable plastic envelope. Or upgrade to a Card Cubby (about $24), which includes alphabetized tabs and is tiny enough to keep in a purse.
Plan your shopping ahead of time. Set up your e-mail program to send you a monthly reminder to use your gift cards. Think in terms of the week or month ahead, when will you be near the store? What items do you need there? Is there a gift you need for someone else? You are more likely to use the card if you know what you want ahead of time and can get in and out quickly.
Rethink general-purpose gift cards. Gift cards from credit card companies can be used anywhere you can use a credit card. But these cards also come with drawbacks.
Use-anywhere cards, known as open-loop cards are more likely to come with startup fees and monthly inactivity fees that chip away at your balance. Many of these gift cards also include a valid through or good through date stamped on the front. Your card’s underlying value will not expire after that date, but you will have to call customer service for a replacement card, and that raises the risk that you will simply toss the card and your remaining balance.
Read the fine print. The CARD Act prohibits gift card inactivity fees for the first year, and requires that gift cards cannot expire within five years of when activated. State lawsmay extend additional gift card protections. That gives you a big, but not permanent cushion of time to use the cards.
Trade or sell your cards. If you get a card you know you will not use, a Hot Topic gift card, for instance, when you are more of an L.L.Bean type, use one of the many card-swapping and card-selling sites to get what you really want.
That is because with a Wendy’s and a Walgreens on practically every corner, such lower-end cards simply are more convenient to use. They also offer more value for your card. If you give a Wal-Mart gift card to your mailman, there are plenty of things to use it on.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing Tagged with: card-selling, card-swapping, cardholder, cards, consumers, Credit CARD Act, credit card companies, credit-card, customer service, customers, drawbacks, e-mail program, fees, gift card industry, Gift Cards, inactivity fees, lower-end cards, open-loop cards, retailers, startup fees, Wal-Mart gift card
September 4th, 2014 by Elma Jane
EMV, which stands for Europay, MasterCard and Visa, and is slated to be mandated across the United States starting in October 2015 and automated fuel dispensers have until October 2017 to comply. Unlike magnetic swipe cards, EMV chip cards encrypt data and authenticate communication between the card and card reader. Additionally, chip card user is prompted for a PIN for authentication.
Why are those dates important? Companies lose $5.33 billion to fraud today, with card issuers and merchants incurring 63 and 37 percent of these losses, respectively. Under the EMV mandate, merchants who do not process chip cards will bear the burden of the issuer loss. By accepting chip card transactions, merchants and issuers should see a reduction in fraud.
Overcoming Barriers to EMV Adoption
Given the significant barriers to EMV adoption, it may be tempting for merchants to meet minimum requirements for accepting EMV payments. However, medium to large retailers should also consider the bigger picture of customer security and peace of mind.
Some key critical success factors for a payment initiative of this size include:
Business Continuity Architecture: As with all payment systems, it is imperative to have the EMV system running at all times. The solution should preferably have Active-Active architecture across multiple data centers and have a low Recovery Point Objective (the point in time to which the systems and data must be recovered after an outage).
Cost Benefit Analysis: Take a top down approach and decide accordingly on the scope of the analysis. This will ensure that decisions on scope are made on basis of quantitative data and not just qualitative arguments.
Phased Approach: To overcome time or cost overage in a project of this scope and complexity, retailers should try using an iterative approach for development. The rollout can be divided into multiple releases of six to seven months, which will provide the opportunity to review, capture lessons learnt, and improve subsequent releases.
Proactive Monitoring Alerts: Considering the criticality of business function carried out by EMV, tokenization and payment gateway, a vigorous supervising environment must be defined to perform proactive and reactive monitoring. It should take into consideration the monitoring targets, tools, scope and methods. This will provide advance visibility to the failure points and better ensuring maximum system availability.
Resilience Testing: Typically in a software project, the testing is limited to the unit, integration, performance and user acceptance. However, due to the critical nature of the applications and systems involved, robust resiliency testing is vital. This will ensure that there are no single points of failure and the system remains available when running in error conditions.
Stakeholder Identification: This is a key step to ensure that you have varied perspectives from all departments and their support. It will keep your organization from being blindsided and reduce the risk of disagreements in later stages of the program. Key stakeholders should include Store Operations, Card Accounting, Loss Prevention, Contact Center and IT & Data Security.
Organizations should adopt a five step approach to implement a secure, robust and industry-leading payment solution:
Encryption – Point to point encryption will ensure card data is secure and encrypted from the point of capture to the processor. Usually, merchants use data encryption that is not point to point, rendering their organization vulnerable to data breaches. Software encryption is the most common form of encryption, as it is easily installed and quires little or no hardware upgrades; however, it is less secure, may expose encryption keys, and is prone to memory scanning attacks. Hardware encryption is considered more secure but requires more costly terminal upgrades. Hardware encryption is designed to self-destruct the keys if tampered, but is not well-defined as very limited headway has been made in this space.
Tokenization – Build a Card Data Environment (CDE) that will host a centralized card data storage solution. Only limited applications with firewall access and capability to mutually authenticate via certificates can access CDE and receive card data. The rest of the applications will have tokens which are random numbers. This architecture will ease the merchant’s burden with existing and emerging PCI Data Security Standards.
Payment Gateway – Perform a risk assessment on the current payment gateway and identify gaps in functionality, manageability, compliance, scalability, speed to market and best practices. Determine the alternatives to mitigate the risks. Some of the important aspects of a leading payment gateway solution are support for all forms of credit, debit, gift cards and check transactions. Its ability to work with any acquirer, in-built encryption abilities, support for settlement and reconciliation must also be kept into consideration.
Settlement, Funding and Reconciliation – A workflow-based system to handle chargebacks and the automation of chargeback processing will greatly reduce labor-intensive work and enhance the quality of data used for settlement and reconciliation. Upgrades to the existing receipt retrieval system may be needed.
Card fraud is on the rise in the U.S., and merchants are the primary target for stealing information. With the EMV deadline just over a year away, the responsible retailer must take steps to prepare now. Although EMV implementation might seem overwhelming to merchants, they should start their journey to secure payments rather than wait for a looming deadline. Solutions such as data encryption and tokenization should be used in combination with EMV to implement a robust payment solution to better protect merchants against fraud. By proactively adopting EMV payment solutions, merchants can stay ahead of the regulatory curve and better protect their customers from fraud.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Payment Card Industry PCI Security, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: authentication, automation, card, card data, Card Data Environment, card fraud, card issuers, card transactions, CDE, chargeback, chargeback processing, check, check transactions, chip, chip cards, credit, customer, customer security, data, data breaches, data encryption, data security, debit, EMV, emv chip cards, EuroPay, fraud, gateway, Gift Cards, host, integration, magnetic swipe cards, MasterCard, Merchant's, payment, payment gateway, payment solution, payment systems, PCI, PCI Data Security Standards, PIN, processor, retailers, Security, software, swipe, terminal, tokenization, tools, visa
November 22nd, 2013 by Admin
As we move to smartphones and tablets as payment methods security and privacy concerns are a real issue. With recent NSA leaks shedding light on our data and the access others have to it, we have to consider security, privacy and health implications. This year alone e-commerce transactions on smartphones and tablets during the holiday season are set to grow by 15%. Although tablets, not smartphones will drive the bulk of that growth, smartphones are set to overtake mobile-commerce payments over the next 5 years. Tablet payments in the U.S. alone are expecting to reach $26 billion in transactions. Currently tablets are more convenient for m-commerce due to their size, but as far as the future of electronic payment processing, smartphones are where it’s at.
The smart merchant sees this coming and realizes frictionless transactions increase sales. The more comfortable and less complicated a transaction is for a customer, the better. Smartphones, tablets, PCs, laptops and more can already process electronic transactions from credit and debit cards, gift cards, electronic checks and more. Money movement is easier than ever and more convenient than cash. Cash is king however in situations where internet connectivity and power are an issue. In India for example, a poor electric grid makes power outages a common occurrence. During natural disasters, when resources are badly needed, power outages or severed internet communications mean no electronic transactions can be processed. So physical currency remains a must, in the future we may see payment technology evolve to where digital money like crypto currency (BitCoin) may be stored on the device itself similar to having cash. As these electronic payment systems evolve, merchants need to position themselves to accept what their market prefers to transact with.
The smart citizen also sees this coming and has concerns that things like a National ID program being established may compromise their privacy.
As an extreme example of electronic transactions, a nightclub in Spain used subdermally implanted RFID chips in a woman that allowed patrons to pay for food and beverages without a credit card.
Posted in e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Check Services, Electronic Payments, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Merchant Services Account, Near Field Communication, Smartphone Tagged with: bitcoin, cash, connectivity, credit, crypto currency, currency, debit cards, digital money, e-commerce, electronic, electronic checks, frictionless, Gift Cards, health, internet, laptops, leaks, m-commerce, Merchant's, mobile-commerce payments, money, national id, nsa, pay, payment methods, payment processing, PCs, privacy, processed, RFID, Security, smartphone, tablets, technology, transact, transactions
