October 9th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Credit card fraud is much more difficult to prevent in a card-not-present transaction. In a face-to-face setting the merchant can inspect the card to ensure that it is valid and can verify that the cardholder is an authorized user on the account. None of these actions can be performed when the payment is submitted online or accepted by phone. As we moved in adopting EMV Technology, majority of fraud is going to migrate away from counterfeit and stolen cards towards the card-not-present transaction as happened in other countries.
A combination of best practices and fraud prevention tools can provide card-not-present merchants with strong fraud prevention capabilities.
Steps to avoid fraud and protect your business for a card-not-present transaction:
- Email Verification: Send a message to the email address provided by the customer requesting that the customer verify the email address is correct, you can ensure that the email is associated with the other information provided.
- Maintain PCI compliance:All merchants accepting card payments are now required to be compliant with the requirements of the PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Standard) which sets the rules for data security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other protective measures.
- Security Code Verification. Requesting the three digit security code on the back of a credit card. Visa (CVV2), MasterCard (CVC 2) and Discover (CID) cards, and the 4-digit numbers located on the front of American Express (CID) cards. Card Security Codes help verify that the customer is in a physical possession of a valid card during a card-not-present transaction.
- Use an Address Verification Service (AVS): Enables you to compare the billing address provided by your customer with the billing address on the card issuer’s file before processing a transaction. AVS is good protection against card information obtained through means like phishing and malware because fraudster might not know the billing address.
- Use 3D Secure Service: MasterCard and Verified by Visa enable cardholders to authenticate themselves to their card issuers through the use of personal passwords they create when they register their cards with the programs. The liability of any fraudulent charges through the 3D service is picked up by the issuer, not the merchant.
- Verify the phone number and transaction information.Prior to shipping your products, call the phone number provided by the customer and verify the transaction information. Criminals may be unable to verify such information, because in their haste to max out the credit line before the fraud is discovered, they often order at random and do not keep records.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, e-commerce & m-commerce, Mail Order Telephone Order, Payment Card Industry PCI Security, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: American Express, card-not-present, card-security, cardholder, cnp, credit card, Discover, EMV, MasterCard, merchant, Payment Card Industry, payments, PCI, visa
October 9th, 2015 by Elma Jane
In order to maintain some sort of order within PCI Compliance, VISA and MasterCard have created 4 risk levels that will apply to any particular business, for determining the risk level of a merchant.
| Merchant Level |
Description |
Validation Requirements |
| Level 1 |
Merchants processing over 6 million Visa transactions annually (all channels) or Global merchants identified as Level 1 by any Visa region. |
Annual Report on Compliance (ROC) by Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) or internal auditor if signed by officer of the company.
Quarterly network scan by Approved Scan Vendor (ASV).
Attestation of Compliance Form. |
| Level 2 |
Merchants processing 1 million to 6 million Visa transactions annually (all channels). |
Annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ).
Quarterly network scan by ASV.Attestation of Compliance Form. |
| Level 3 |
Merchants processing 20,000 to 1 million Visa e-commerce transactions annually. |
Annual Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ).
Quarterly network scan by ASV.
Attestation of Compliance Form. |
| Level 4 |
Merchants processing less than 20,000 Visa e-commerce transactions annually and all other merchants processing up to 1 million Visa transactions annually. |
Annual SAQ recommended.
Quarterly network scan by ASV if applicable.
Compliance validation requirements set by acquirer. |
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, e-commerce & m-commerce, Payment Card Industry PCI Security Tagged with: MasterCard, merchant, PCI Compliance, visa
September 8th, 2015 by Elma Jane
A card not present transaction (CNP, MO/TO, Mail Order / Telephone Order, MOTOEC) is a payment card transaction made where the cardholder does not or cannot physically present the card for a merchant’s visual examination at the time that an order is given and payment effected, such as for mail-order transactions by mail or fax, or over the telephone or Internet.
The Card Associations created this term to help identify these Transactions, because CNP situations tend to be where the majority of fraudulent activity occurs; it is difficult for a merchant to verify that the actual cardholder is indeed authorizing a purchase.
The card security code system has been set up to reduce the incidence of credit card fraud arising from CNP.
Types of Security codes:
CVC1 or CVV1, encoded on track 2 of the magnetic stripe of the card and used for card present transactions. The purpose of the code is to verify that a payment card is actually in the hand of the merchant. This code is automatically retrieved when the magnetic stripe of a card is swiped on a point-of-sale (card present) device and is verified by the issuer. A limitation is that if the entire card has been duplicated and the magnetic stripe copied, then the code is still valid.
The most cited, is CVV2 or CVC2. This code is often sought by merchants for Card Not Present Transactions occurring by mail, fax, telephone or Internet. In some countries in Western Europe, card issuers require a merchant to obtain the code when the cardholder is not present in person.
Contactless cards and chip cards may supply their own electronically-generated codes, such as iCVV or Dynamic CVV.
Code Location
The card security code is typically the last three or four digits printed, not embossed like the card number, on the signature strip on the back of the card.
American Express Cards have a four-digit code printed on the front side of the card above the number.
Diners Club, Discover, JCB, MasterCard, and Visa Credit and Debit Cards have a three-digit card security code. The code is the final group of numbers printed on the back signature panel of the card.
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: card transaction, card-not-present, cardholder, chip cards, cnp, contactless cards, credit card, debit cards, magnetic stripe, merchant, moto, security code
August 27th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Merchant processing fees is one expense you should look at as an investment. If you try to avoid merchant processing fees, you risk antagonizing prospective buyers and losing opportunities.
If you limit payment options for customers, you run a real risk of losing customers.
In addition to losing customers, you can run the risk of not being able to close deals. If you don’t provide your customers with easy, hassle free ways to pay they will likely seek out other vendors that do offer more convenient ways to pay for the services they need.
Do yourself and your business a favor, offer prospective customers and existing customers easy ways to pay you. Your customers will appreciate it and in return, are more likely to become repeat customers.
We live in a nearly cashless society. Accepting credit cards is a requirement in today’s business trend.
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: cards, credit cards, merchant, merchant account, processing fees
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
July 10th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Every Merchant in the country needs to upgrade their terminal. Are you ready for the October 1, 2015 Liability Shift?
Beginning October 1, 2015, all businesses that accept in-person payments must be able to take cards embedded with chips to avoid liability for fraud. The chips are more secure than magnetic stripes.
National Transaction brings the latest EMV and NFC technologies to Merchants.
NTC Clients will be able to accept contactless payment with the same NFC technology used by Apple Pay, Google Wallet and SoftCard. Additionally, the Ingenico terminals are EMV Enabled, delivering the latest in fraud prevention technology.
The new EMV enabled terminals are designed to accept EMV chip cards and magnetic stripe cards.
EMV (an acronym for Europay, MasterCard® and Visa®) is a global technology standard for payment cards.
What are the benefits of having an EMV terminal?
These next generation terminals can reduce your risk of accepting counterfeit cards, as chip and PIN transactions verify both the card and the cardholder.
Eliminate your card present fraud liability exposure associated with the October 1st, 2015* liability shift imposed by the card brands.
Improve customer service for your international cardholder customer. EMV cards are already the standard in over 80 countries.
Be on the lookout for more information about how to be chip card ready before OCTOBER.
*Businesses with Automated Fuel Dispensers (also called “Pay at the Pump”) acceptance methods have until October 2017 to comply with the new standard.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Mobile Payments, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: cardholder, cards, chips, EMV, emv cards, EMV terminal, EuroPay, magnetic stripes, MasterCard, merchant, nfc, payment cards, payments, PIN transactions, terminal, visa
June 26th, 2015 by Elma Jane
As you can tell from the name, Android Pay playbook is remarkably similar to Apple Pay. Android Pay will use an on-board Near Field Communication (NFC) chip and tokenization services from the major networks to deliver a token from the phone to an NFC-enabled point of sale. Just like Apple Pay. Android Pay is supported by more than 700,000 merchant locations and Android Pay will provide APIs for app developers to take in-app payments from the on-board wallet. Both Apple Pay and Android Pay have fingerprint scanners on phones, you can enable payments with just a fingerprint scan.
While details are barely sufficient, rumor has it Google won’t charge banks a fee as Apple does on the transactions and that’s the difference. Additionally, technical differences in the operating systems underlying the payment system exist, but they won’t affect how every day users experience the system. Android Pay will suffer a slower upgrade path than Apple Pay, due to the lack of hardware support for the newer operating system (it can take Android twice as long to get users upgraded).
There is no war between Apple and google. NFC won the war! We are seeing all of the armies gather together under its flag. As consumers, we love to see better products. When it comes to payments, we need standards and reliability.
With the alignment of the two operating system platforms on NFC, on user experiences like fingerprint unlocking and on both in-app and retail payments, consumers, retailers, and app developers can build an ecosystem we can all understand. Credit cards work great because they are ubiquitous. Everyone can use them everywhere, and every retailer has incentives to be a part of the system.
An NFC-based mobile payments experience will have this same effect. Over the next five years more and more retailers will add NFC-capable terminals. More phones will be fully capable of NFC payments with fingerprint sensors. More consumers will carry those phones.
So if it’s not a war, are there any losers? Companies focused on plastic cards, but not NFC. Transitory technologies like Samsung Pay’s MST (magnetic secure transmission) also have a strong transition period as they enable payments at non-NFC enabled terminals. MST (magnetic secure transmission) is a strong player because the user experience is very similar (hold a phone to a reader), even if the technical method is not the same.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Near Field Communication Tagged with: banks, chip, credit cards, merchant, Mobile Payments, Near Field Communication, nfc, NFC payments, NFC-capable terminals, NFC-enabled, payment system, payments, point of sale, tokenization
June 18th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Every Merchant in the country needs to upgrade their terminal.
Are you ready for the October 1, 2015 Liability Shift?
Beginning October 1, 2015, all businesses that accept in-person payments must be able to take cards embedded with chips to avoid liability for fraud. The chips are more secure than magnetic stripes.
National Transaction brings the latest EMV and NFC technologies to Merchants.
NTC Clients will be able to accept contactless payment with the same NFC technology used by Apple Pay, Google Wallet and SoftCard. Additionally, the Ingenico terminals are EMV Enabled, delivering the latest in fraud prevention technology.
The new EMV enabled terminals are designed to accept EMV chip cards and magnetic stripe cards.
EMV (an acronym for Europay, MasterCard® and Visa®) is a global technology standard for payment cards.
By accepting chip cards EMV terminal, you help protect your business from card present fraud liability and prepare your business for the future of payment application technology. If your business accepts and processes a counterfeit card transaction on a non-EMV terminal, the liability for that fraudulent transaction is yours, not incurred by the card issuers.
How do you process an EMV chip card transaction?
- Insert Card. Instead of swiping, the customer will insert the card into the terminal, chip first, face up.
- Leave the Card in the Terminal. The card must remain in the terminal during the entire transaction.
- The Receipt or Enter a PIN. As prompted, the customer will sign the receipt or enter their PIN to complete the transaction.
- Remove Your Card. When the purchase is complete, remind the customer to take the card with them.
What are the benefits of having an EMV terminal?
These next generation terminals can reduce your risk of accepting counterfeit cards, as chip and PIN transactions verify both the card and the cardholder.
Eliminate your card present fraud liability exposure associated with the October 1st, 2015* liability shift imposed by the card brands.
Improve customer service for your international cardholder customer. EMV cards are already the standard in over 80 countries.
Be on the lookout for more information about how to be chip card ready before OCTOBER.
*Businesses with Automated Fuel Dispensers (also called “Pay at the Pump”) acceptance methods have until October 2017 to comply with the new standard.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa, Near Field Communication Tagged with: cardholder, cards, chips cards, contactless payment, EMV, emv chip cards, EMV terminal, EuroPay, magnetic stripe cards, MasterCard, merchant, nfc, payment cards, payments, visa
June 4th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Electronic gift card processing increases revenues and attracts new customers. They also reduce the fraud and labor with traditional paper gift certificates.
National Transaction offers customized gift card processing merchant services tailored to your gift card processing needs.
Gift cards provide added incentives to your customers and employees such as:
Bring in New Customers – Cards given by loyal customers to friends and family increase your exposure to your intended market. Gift Cards are ideal for promotion through mailings, corporate gifts, charitable donations and many other marketing efforts.
Encourage Repeat Business – For regular customers, enable them to retain a prepaid balance for recurring services. Promote come back rewards such as receive $5 off of your next purchase of $50 or more.
Great for Gifts – Gift Cards are the perfect gifting solution for the holidays. They get to choose their own present. Attract new customers and boost sales all year long. Perfect for showers, Mother’s Day, Birthdays and Graduations.
Increased Sales and Profits – Gift Card Holders spend on average 25% more than the total value of the card. Because no cash back required, returns stay on the card and never leave your business.
Popular with your Employees – Employees love incentives. Provide bonuses and rewards to keep them happy and revenue within the business.
By issuing gift cards and not refund you get the money back into your store from returns and refunds. Gift cards are given to your new customers many times. You pay top dollar for advertising. Gift cards escort new customers in the door!
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: Electronic gift card, gift Card, Gift Card Processing, gift certificates, merchant, merchant services
May 12th, 2015 by Elma Jane
Our company’s goal is to make our customer happy. Our Merchant is very important with us. At National Transaction it’s all about our customer service. Yet many customers would rather than not contact a company for support, and this is especially true in the tech world. Customer finds the support experience as frustrating and time-wasting exercise.
We know this is true because we are customers ourselves. We’ve all felt that palpable sense of dread when we have to call a toll-free support number, expecting a massive, circular phone tree followed by a seemingly endless wait, and possibly a clueless rep when (if!) we finally do reach a human being.
It doesn’t have to be that way, at National Transaction we manage customer support delivery because we know we have an obligation to make it work. NTC’s teamwork-focused strategy and effective application of technology and data, can help our customer service do their jobs better.
How it works:
Apply lessons learned to continuously improve service – Some issues customers raise are a one-off, but many times, patterns emerge that can deliver insights on how the company could improve service for everyone.
It can be difficult for a single agent or manager to identify patterns, which is why a customer support platform with robust reporting capabilities is crucial to enable continuous service improvement.
In a crowded marketplace, excellence in customer support can be a key differentiator for a business. When customers reach out for support, they’re usually already stressed out about something that’s not working as expected. Far too often, their stress level increases while they’re attempting to get help, due to poorly designed business processes.
If your customers are stressed out, you can change that by taking a new approach. Make sure you know who they are when they reach out, and allow them to contact you on their own terms. Access your company’s collective expertise to quickly resolve the customer’s problems.
Be honest with the customer – A good customer support agent really does want to make things right for the customer, and that’s admirable. However, it’s important to avoid making commitments you can’t keep, which will serve only to increase the customer’s dissatisfaction in the long run.
Always be honest with your customers. If you can’t solve their problem immediately, give them an accurate time frame for a resolution, and let them know what steps you’re taking to address the issue. Record the commitment on a customer database so colleagues are up-to-date on your activities.
Be honest about what you can and cannot do, and take a look at the big picture, so you can improve service not only for the customer on the line but for everyone else.
Give customers multiple channels to access help – Customers have unique needs and individual preferences, Give them choices.
Know who your customers are – There are few among us who haven’t experienced the frustration of a poorly designed phone tree and the indignity of being shuffled from agent to agent and asked for our name, account number, product type and current service issue over and over again. Stop doing that to your customers.
Deploy a technology platform that incorporates a customer database with product and inventory information. That way, you’ll know who your customers are and what products they use when they call, and if you have to transfer them to another agent for help, the next agent will have that information too.
Use teamwork to solve customer issues – Chances are, someone in your company is capable of solving any problem a customer brings to the support team, but that person might not be on the phone. That’s why collaboration is so important.
There are software solutions that make collaborating across business units simple, and enable agents to view notes about past customer issues for clues to solving current problems. This not only helps your company solve the problem at hand, but also allows you to manage the entire relationship.
By following these steps, you can reduce your customers’ stress level and your own.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, nationaltransaction.com Tagged with: account, customer service, customer support, data, database, merchant, software, transaction
