March 1st, 2017 by Elma Jane
ELECTRONIC PAYMENTS
When it comes to electronic payments, certain types of businesses are considered high risk.
Most merchants do not realize that electronic payment processors carry a financial risk on merchant accounts, and normally fund merchants prior to receiving payment from the client’s bank.
Essentially, a merchant account is an unsecured loan.
Different factors used to determine when a business is a high risk are:
- Types of products
- Services they sell how
- How they sell them
Online transactions are considered high risk because there are increased risks of fraud.
A key factor used to determine the risk of a business is chargebacks.
Chargebacks include customer refunds and fraudulent transactions.
Payment providers assess this risk to determine the percentage of chargebacks your business is likely to experience.
Businesses that are considered high risk where they take advanced payments:
- Travel agencies
- Ticketing services
Electronic payments provider is necessary if you want to accept debit and credit card transactions.
For high-risk electronic payments please feel free to call us at 888-996-2273.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: bank, chargebacks, credit card, debit, electronic payments, fraud, loan, merchant accounts, merchants, online, payment processors, transactions, travel agencies
June 16th, 2016 by Elma Jane
Merchants and cardholders have been challenged by the perceived additional time to complete the EMV transaction.
To address concern over EMV checkout time Visa and MasterCard create an alternate EMV payment process that will improve the speed of transaction:
Quick Chip from Visa is available free-of-charge to acquiring banks, payment networks, and other payment processors to offer to merchants. The enhancement requires only a simple software update to the merchant’s card terminal or point-of-sale system.
M/Chip Fast from MasterCard merchants can easily integrate this with their current systems to provide both speed and security for all chip cards. Designed for select environments where fast transaction times, in addition to security, are at a premium.
The new card network options do not require the financial institution to reissue cards, or the merchants to re-certify their point-of-sale terminals.
Alignment in the payments industry and the ability to process a secure transaction in a timely manner for the consumer experience is important.
Keeping current on the payment industry news like Quick Chip and M/Chip Fast or discussion about EMV developments is a smart move for merchants and cardholder as well.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, EMV EuroPay MasterCard Visa Tagged with: banks, card, card network, cardholders, chip cards, EMV, financial institution, merchants, payment, payment networks, payment processors, payments industry, point of sale, Security, terminal, transaction
April 7th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Payment processors share an inherent responsibility to keep their systems secure. It requires a system of governance that includes a broad array of policies, procedures, planning activities, responsibilities, practices and resources for implementing and maintaining a secure system and network operating environment.
To help organizations identify the best payment processors, a recent white paper from i2c outlines the various governance and security best practices processors should use. And it all starts from the top.
Good governance calls for establishing internal audit, compliance, and information security groups within the organization that have separate reporting channels to upper management and/or a board-level audit committee, the report notes. This organizational structure ensures that all security and operational-related risks are appropriately addressed and that all internal processes and practices remain in compliance with the organization’s defined policies and procedures, which in turn should align with applicable external security standards, regulatory laws and payment systems operating rules.
Resource Dedication
Payment processors also need to dedicate proper resources to the task of understanding, and complying with all applicable government, industry, association, legal and regulatory requirements that are relevant to each of their operating regions, according to the paper. Such applicable requirements need to be carefully identified, documented, applied, and updated on a regular basis.
Payment processors’ compliance activities need to cover not only the applicable government, industry, association operating rules and legal/regulatory requirements pertaining to their operations, but they also need to understand and comply with the applicable rules and regulatory requirements pertaining to their client partners. Let say you process customer data on behalf of a partner whose data is governed by a given regulatory rule, then you as their third-party provider must also apply those regulatory rules when handling their data.
Policies and procedures should be developed and put into practice that ensure the payment processor remains in compliance with these various requirements.
Risk Management
Risk management should be incorporated into every payment processors’ system of governance. It provides a framework for identifying and addressing risks within the organization and provides a process for regular operational review and improvement, according to the report. An effective risk management process should adopt an appropriate risk management methodology to identify, evaluate, mitigate and monitor risks pertaining to critical business assets and operations.
Security best practices also call for a defense-in-depth strategy to ensure the protection of information assets and overall risk reduction. A defense-in-depth approach ensures that the failure of any one control does not lead to successful penetration. By providing multiple layers of protection, the controls collectively ensure the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of critical system assets and data.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit Card Security, Payment Card Industry PCI Security, Small Business Improvement, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: availability, confidentiality, defense-in-depth, information security, internal audit, layers of protection, network operating, payment processors, risk reduction, secure system, security best practices, system assets and data, system operating rules, systems secure
