September 11th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Every year Americans take more than 59 million trips abroad. Yet many of us don’t know which questions to ask regarding the use of credit cards. Before you hit the road, let your card issuer know where and when you’ll be traveling, so it doesn’t mistake those overseas charges with fraudulent activity. Start asking some questions below:
Does my card charge a foreign transaction fee? Because these fees can run as high as 3% and can be quite costly.
Does my card have an EMV chip? A smart chip widely used in Europe and other places. Contact your credit card provider and see if they can provide you at no cost a chip-and-PIN card if you don’t already have one. Most of the card companies are moving this way, but typically you have to request it.
Does my card offer any travel perks? You may want to inquire about additional coverage your card may provide you when you’re abroad such as insurance for accidents, lost luggage or auto collision.
How can I get cash overseas? Reach out to the bank or credit card provider and find out what relationships they have in the local market you’re traveling to. This will be helpful for avoiding ATM fees. Additionally, if you need to access cash from your credit card, they’ll be very helpful if you do it through a banking institution that has a relationship with your provider.
Will my card be accepted at my destination? Thirty to sixty days before traveling contact your bank or credit card provider and ask some important questions. Find out if their card is going to be accepted or if there will be any restrictions for it to be used abroad.
The best thing to do is to have a plan before you travel. Know how to minimize your fees and protect your credit cards. Then you can enjoy your adventure.
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: atm, ATM fees, bank, banking, banking institution, card, card issuer, chip, Chip and PIN, chip-and-PIN card, credit card provider, credit cards, EMV, EMV chip, fee, fees, foreign transaction fee, institution, PIN, provider, transaction, transaction fee, travel
August 29th, 2014 by Elma Jane
High risk credit card processing is electronic payment processing for businesses deemed as HIGH RISK by the MERCHANT SERVICES INDUSTRY
The high risk segment of payment processing has become more important as banks and ISO’s have begun to tighten up their credit restrictions and underwriting policies. Businesses are classified as high risk primarily because of their product or service and the way they go to market. In merchant services, risk is related to CHARGEBACKS or customer disputes.
The more likely a business to have chargebacks, the higher risk the business. For instance, online businesses selling a weight loss product through a free trial offer, is more likely to have chargebacks than a retail store selling the same weight loss product.
Merchants are often unaware their business falls into the high risk category when they first start shopping for a merchant account. Getting a high risk merchant account can be difficult.
These providers have more stringent requirements and the application process is longer compared to traditional merchant account providers.
High risk businesses should expect to pay higher rates and fees for payment processing services. As a general rule of thumb, merchants should count on paying at least more than a traditional merchant account. Most high risk merchant accounts also require a contract of at least 18 months, whereas low risk providers offer accounts without cancellation fees or contracts.
ROLLING RESERVES are also a big part of high risk credit card processing. Most high risk merchants have some sort of rolling reserve placed on the account, especially new accounts without any processing history. A Reserve refers to an account where a percentage of the funds from transactions are held in reserve to cover against any chargebacks or fees that the processor may not be able to collect from the merchant. This is similar to a security deposit, but merchants don’t have to pay it up front. Reserves are a pain point for many small high risk merchants, but they are definitely necessary and without them, processors would not accept any high risk merchants at all.
What Businesses Are High Risk?
As mentioned earlier, businesses are usually classified as high risk due to the product or service they offer, however merchants with severely damaged credit or a recent bankruptcy can also be considered high risk. Below are just of the few common high risk merchant categories:
Adult Websites
Cigars & Pipe Tobacco Online
Collection Agencies
Credit Repair
Debt Consolidation
E-Books & Software
Electronic Cigarettes
Firearms – Online
High Ticket & High Volume
Medical Marijuana Dispensaries
Multi Level Marketing & Business Opportunities
Nutraceuticals like weight loss supplements, cleansers etc.
Penny Auctions
Sports Betting Advice
Ticket Brokers – Online Tickets
TMF Merchants
Travel & Timeshare
Unfortunately this list is growing and some credit card processing companies even classify any start up Internet business, that doesn’t have extensive financials to be high risk. With the recent economic recession in the United States, there has been an increase in these start up Internet ventures. People are either looking to supplement their income or start their own business instead of looking for work.
How To Protect Your Business
Accepting credit cards is the single most important part of most online businesses. Unfortunately, many successful businesses go under after having their merchant account shut down. High risk merchants should always be cognizant of their merchant account and pay attention to chargeback percentages. Below are some tips for high risk merchants looking for payment processing solutions.
Be Upfront: Make sure your processor knows exactly what you sell and how you market the product/service. If they don’t accept your business type, keep shopping for a new merchant account provider. Many merchants will try to fly under the radar by not revealing all their products or fully disclose their marketing methods to the processor. This is a bad move, the processor will eventually find out the details about your business. This is usually from doing an audit on your transactions and contacting your customers.
Negotiate Every 3 Months: Credit card processing companies underwrite applications based on previous processing history. If there is no previous history, the account is riskier and the terms offered are usually more expensive and restrictive. You can always re-negotiate your rates, reserves and other contract terms with your current processor. Once they have 3 months of history to evaluate, they may be able to offer you a better deal. Three months of history is the magic number for most processors. If you applied without the previous history and were declined, there is a chance the same processor will approve your application if you provide 3 months of previous statements.
Prepare For The Worst: All high risk merchants should keep at least 2 active merchant accounts, from different providers. You never know when underwriting guidelines might change, or you may have an influx of chargebacks. Having a backup account or even multiple back up accounts is a good idea. Many high risk providers offer a load balancing gateway, which allows for multiple merchant accounts to be integrated into one payment gateway. This way you can spread transactions across multiple accounts, through one shopping cart/gateway.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: account, account providers, accounts, banks, card, chargebacks, contract, credit, credit card processing, credit restrictions, customer, customers, deposit, electronic payment, fees, financials, gateway, High risk credit card, High Ticket & High Volume, ISOs, low risk, marketing, merchant, merchant account, merchant services, multiple accounts, payment gateway, payment processing, processing services, processing solutions, processor, product, Rates, reserves, retail store, risk, ROLLING RESERVES, Security, security deposit, service, shopping cart, statements, terms, TMF Merchants, transactions, travel, underwriting
August 27th, 2014 by Elma Jane
An IT services firm, announced earlier this week that it purchased a majority stake in cloud-based travel management company. With the move,hopes to strengthen its travel vertical by using software-as-a service travel IT platform. The future of software services lies in blending models with customized solutions and services over different stages of an enterprise lifecycle and across different business segments within the enterprise. The platform combined with the strong management team and travel domain specialist will further strengthen competitive position in the travel vertical.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: business, cloud-based, company, domain, IT, management, platform, service, software, solutions, specialist, team, travel, travel domain, travel management, travel vertical
August 25th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Let’s talk about success stories of the people who worked with National Transaction and made it big in this field. One great story that we have is about Big Daddy. I named this guy Big Daddy, because of the great success that he made in this industry. Big Daddy was a Physical fitness trainer with an outgoing personality before he joined National Transaction. He gained knowledge about the card industry and build a good working relationship with NTC’s President Mr. M. Together, they secure a relationship with several associations and negotiated a deal. Now, they were able to partner with a high risk account. While these associations continue to profit from the relationship, Big Daddy took 3 years off. These associations assist merchants become more profitable and is the leading global advocate for travel agents, the travel industry and the traveling public, also the world’s largest association of travel professionals. National Transaction has been ASTA member and a partner since then for almost 10 years now. As Big Daddy broaden his knowledge and skills about the industry, he started to build his own portfolio which gave him the ability to form his residual income. As of this date, he averages $30,000 monthly with National Transaction, while running his own business. If Big Daddy made it, then other Sales Representatives can make it bigger too. With the right company to work with like National Transaction, right tools and full support from our Team and Customer Service your on the right track, so why not make a move??? Start building your portfolio and give it a shot or if you already have one, work it out. You will never know. In all labor there is a profit.
Posted in nationaltransaction.com Tagged with: account, ASTA, card, card industry, customer service, high risk account, Merchant's, National Transaction, residual, residual income, sales, travel, travel agents
May 12th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Let’s talk about success stories of the people who worked with National Transaction and made it big in this field. One great story that we have is about Big Daddy. I named this guy Big Daddy, because of the great success that he made in this industry. Big Daddy was a Physical fitness trainer with an outgoing personality before he joined National Transaction. He gained knowledge about the card industry and build a good working relationship with NTC’s President Mr. M. Together, they secure a relationship with several associations and negotiated a deal. Now, they were able to partner with a high risk account. While these associations continue to profit from the relationship, Big Daddy took 3 years off. These associations assist merchants become more profitable and is the leading global advocate for travel agents, the travel industry and the traveling public, also the world’s largest association of travel professionals. National Transaction has been ASTA member and a partner since then for almost 10 years now. As Big Daddy broaden his knowledge and skills about the industry, he started to build his own portfolio which gave him the ability to form his residual income. As of this date, he averages $30,000 monthly with National Transaction, while running his own business. If Big Daddy made it, then other Sales Representatives can make it bigger too. With the right company to work with like National Transaction, right tools and full support from our Team and Customer Service your on the right track, so why not make a move??? Start building your portfolio and give it a shot or if you already have one, work it out. You will never know. In all labor there is a profit.
Posted in nationaltransaction.com Tagged with: account, ASTA, card, card industry, customer service, high risk account, Merchant's, National Transaction, residual, residual income, sales, travel, travel agents
April 17th, 2014 by Elma Jane
Issuers participating in the MasterCard Rewards Platform can pursue greater engagement and value in their programs through a partnership MasterCard is announcing today with Points International Ltd. The companies say they struck the deal to take advantage of the popularity of travel and related experiences. Under the agreement, participating issuers can let their cardholders to exchange and trade earned airline miles, hotel points and loyalty currencies.
Travel happens to be one of the most popular redemption options for points on most programs today. So this is really about enabling consumers to get even more choice with regard to getting some redemption options.
Issuers individually will roll out the program later this year based on their own schedules. Any of the hundreds of banks that use the MasterCard Rewards Platform are eligible to participate. Participation is voluntary.
Enhanced flexibility in cardholder reward redemptions was a key driver behind the initiative, what this partnership allows to do is enable all customers that have points that they’ve gained from spending on their credit cards or debit cards to then exchange those points into a miles program or a hotel program that they tend to always have a lot of other points accumulated already.
Variable Exchange Rates
Cardholders will be provided with a conversation ratio applicable to the pair of rewards being exchanged. Ratios will differ by redemption transaction. Consumers also may choose to transfer small buckets of rewards points into one program and the rest in other programs. They can do transfers multiple times and across multiple rewards providers.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Gift & Loyalty Card Processing, Travel Agency Agents Tagged with: airline, airline miles, banks, cardholder, credit cards, debit cards, hotel, loyalty, MasterCard, platform, programs, reward, rewards, transaction, transfers, travel, travel related
February 3rd, 2014 by Elma Jane
National Transaction and Virtuoso Agreement Official
National transaction and Virtuoso signed a preferred supplier agreement this 30th of January. NTC’s Electronic Payment System will be offered to its more than 330 agencies with 7,200 elite advisors in 20 countries.
Virtuoso is the travel industry’s leading luxury network. Travelers who use Virtuoso’s Advisors get access to more than 1,300 of the world’s premier travel providers, as well as exclusive, experiences and products. Virtuoso’s history dates to the 1950s, when the tour company Allied Travel formed to help travel agencies with foreign, international and group trips. In 1986, Allied Travel merged with Percival Tours to form (API) Allied Percival International, joining the best travel agents in the country. In 2000, API was rebranded Virtuoso, and has since become the leading travel network in the world.
While National Transaction with over 15 years in the payment service industry, has gained experience to integrate vast range of payment services. Processing digital transactions for more than 3,000 business owners and has been the preferred merchant account provider for many industry associations including ASTA, CLIA, HBTA, ARTA OSSN and now VIRTUOSO.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, e-commerce & m-commerce, Electronic Payments, Internet Payment Gateway, Travel Agency Agents, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: arta, ASTA, clia, hbta, merchant account provider, National Transaction Corporation, ossn, travel, travel agencies, travel industry's, travel network, travel providers, travelers, Virtuoso
November 11th, 2013 by Elma Jane
MasterCard is releasing a new program for its corporate clients that allows them to closely monitor and control their travel expenses online. The program, known as Travel Controller, lets businesses track all of their individual travel accounts under one system, giving owners a chance to reduce those travel expenses.
Typically, travel and entertainment is the second-largest controllable expense after salaries and benefits, and yet companies worldwide are overwhelmed with huge amounts of travel spend data requiring expense reconciliation said, head of travel and entertainment at MasterCard. “With minimal upfront investment and systems integration, Travel Controller gives companies the opportunity to remedy this pain point.
This program is somewhat an extension of the Smart Data service that MasterCard launched in July. This program lets company treasurers analyze business-wide spending by assessing big data from all employees.
MasterCard’s Travel Controller is not scheduled to be on the market until early 2014, but it is currently being used as a pilot at a select group of banks. With this program, business owners can gain a better understanding of how their travel expenses are being spent. If an employee is spending more than the amount dictated by the company’s travel policy, the Travel Controller will show that information.
Posted in Credit card Processing, Travel Agency Agents, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: accounts, benefits, control, corporate, entertainment, expenses, investment, market, MasterCard, online, pilot, reconcilliation, remedy, salaries, systems integration, travel, travel controller, upfront
October 24th, 2013 by Elma Jane
Buoyed by an improving economy, business travelers are once again taking to the skies and spending more on corporate travel. The Global Business Travel Association has projected that $273.3 billion in travel dollars will be spent in 2013, and “that’s a whole lot of spending for corporate travel managers and individual business travelers to evaluate and track.”
Recognizing this problem, MasterCard launched Travel Controller on October 21. The new product is designed to give corporate users greater control over their travel expenses by directly addressing data concerns.
“Companies today are more than ever looking for more and better ways to help manage their corporate travel expense, to manage travelers that are outside of policy, and most importantly, reduce the amount of money they spend on travel.
Travel Controller is designed to be a modern solution to the problems posed by traditional lodge cards. Unlike these options, Travel Controller allows corporate users to identify individual travelers, trips and transactions, providing businesses greater insight into this spending than the available offerings that dominate the market.
Travel controller uses latest virtual card technology to generate a unique account number for each individual transaction, each hotel reservation and each ticket that’s purchased. And when its generating that card, it captures that data that’s important to the company for how they manage that.
Whether that’s the details of the transaction or things more specific to the trip or traveler or the way the company manages its budgets, all of this information is provided 100 percent of the time. This removes the headaches associated with central travel while still giving that control element that companies are looking for.
Travel Controller is around the goals of an end user organization, as a company that’s trying to manage their travel expenses more effectively.
There is a defined data set, and built in flexibility for companies to define their own customer-specific fields, that are important so that the data you get back isn’t just thousands of pieces of information, but rather its those things that are most important and its brought to you in a way that makes it easy to take advantage of.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Financial Services, Merchant Services Account, Travel Agency Agents, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: account, addressing, amount, association, business, card, controller, corporate, data set, dollars, dominate, element, expenses, generating, global, improving, individual, information, lodge, market, MasterCard, money, policy, reduce, spend, spending, traditional, transactions, travel, travelers, trips, unique, virtual
October 17th, 2013 by Elma Jane
National Transaction Corporation’s services will work with any existing (Non Proprietary) Terminal. NTC can reprogram an existing terminal as well as service and provide supplies for any terminal.
Below are the following Terminals and Model Type:
1. Hypercom – They produce electronic payment processing hardware and software for a wide range of industries. In 2009 Hypercom co-founded founding the Secure POS (Point Of Sale) Vendor Alliance, a non profit organization created by Hypercom, Ingenico and VeriFone to increase awareness of and improve payment industry security. Hypercom entered into a merger agreement with VeriFone, which closed August 4th, 2011.
Hypercom Machines: T7P – T7Plus – T4100 – T4210 – T4220 IP Terminal. For Precise Detail of the machines please check our website. www.nationaltransaction.com
2. Ingenico – is a leading provider of payment solutions, with over 20 million terminals deployed in more than 125 countries. Ingenico is a worldwide company, whose business is to provide the technology involved in secure electronic transactions. Its traditional business is based around the manufacture of point of sale payment terminals, but it now also includes complete payment solutions and related services. In 2008, after the merging with SAGEM Sécurité, Ingenico decided to close its historical R&D centre in Barcelona. This centre has developed Ingenico’s most successful family of EFTPOS (Electronic funds transfer point of sale). More than three million units sold worldwide in 2007. Ingenico acquired German payment processor Easycash in 2009. In 2011, Ingenico integrated Pennies, The electronic charity box, into one of their market leading mobile Chip and PIN payment terminals, allowing retailers to ‘switch on’ the Pennies solution so their customers can add a micro-donation to their bill when paying by card. As of 2012, over 15 million Ingenico terminals are deployed across 125 countries, with the Ingenico Aqua 50 being their best selling POS (Point Of Sale) terminal.
Ingenico Terminals: iPP220 – iPP320USB – iCT220 PIN Pad – iCT250 CounterTop – Agua PCI – i5100 Dial – i7780 HandHeld i778oM – i7780 Versatile Base – 7770 Intel Base. For Precise Detail of the terminal please check our website. www.nationaltransaction.com
3. VeriFone – is a global provider of technology for electronic payment transactions an international producer and designer of electronic payment solutions and value-added services at the POS (Point Of Sale). VeriFone provides merchant-operated, consumer-facing and self-service payment systems for the financial, retail, travel & hospitality, petroleum, government and healthcare industries. The company’s solutions are utilized by merchants, processors and acquirers in developed and emerging economies worldwide.
VeriFone Models: OMNI 3730LE/VX510LE N – OMNI 3750 4MEG DUAL COM – VX 510 6 MB DUAL COM 12MB – VX570 DUAL COM 6MB WITH SMART CARD – VX610 CDMA (AVAILABLE FOR SPRINT AND VERIZONE). For Precise Detail of the models please check our website. www.nationaltransaction.com
Posted in Credit card Processing, Credit Card Reader Terminal, Credit Card Security, Electronic Payments, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale Tagged with: 15100 Dial, 7770 Intel Base, acquirers, aqua 50, Aqua PCI, Chip and PIN, eftpos, electronic, electronic funds transfer point of sale, financial, healthcare, hospitality, hypercom, i7780, iCT220 PIN Pad, IP, iPP220, iPP320USB, mobile, Omni 3730LE, Omni 3750, paying, payment, point of sale, processor, retailers, Security, T4100, T4210, T4220, T7P, T7Plus, travel, VX 510, VX510LE, VX570, VX610
