March 17th, 2023 by Admin
Best Practices for Merchants to Get The Lowest Rates Possible.
Overview
When you settle your transactions each day, National Transaction’s network routes them to the respective Card Associations (Visa, MasterCard, Discover) and debit networks through Interchange. Every transaction is assigned an Interchange category based on card type (credit, debit, rewards, purchasing) industry type (retail, e-commerce, etc) and qualification elements (swiped card, key entered, etc).
What is Interchange?
Interchange is the system where transactions are submitted for payment from the Acquirer or Merchant Processor to the Card Issuer or Debit Network. The Card Associations and Debit Networks establish the rules and manage the Interchange of all transactions. Read more of this article »
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants Tagged with: Discover, key entered, MasterCard, POS device, swiped card, Visa MasterCard American Express
February 8th, 2023 by Admin
The credit card processing industry is about to experience an infrastructure shift. The terminology reads like alphabet soup so we’ll start with a list of the (not so) new technologies. Essentially magnetic swipe readers are going to be phased out and new Chip & PIN cards or chip-based payment cards will slowly replace them over the next few years. The key date on the radar is October 2015. Read more of this article »
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: EuroPay, MasterCard, Near Field Communication, Visa MasterCard American Express
August 19th, 2013 by Admin
1. Use newer POS systems to reduce credit card fees.
2. Find out what percentage of your gross sales go toward credit card rates.
3. Perform a statement review at least annually.
Any time a customer uses a credit card to purchase services and goods the merchant pays various rates and fees processing those transactions. Most of these fees go to the bank issuing the credit card as they take on the bulk of the risk in credit card transactions. Visa, American Express and Discover own the network on which these credit card transactions are processed on and they receive part of the fee and percentage rate as well as establish these rates and fees. Finally the bank that provides merchant account services gets part of these rates and fees.
To a small business 2, 3, or even 4% might not sound like much but when these fees are on the gross total of sales they can be significantly higher than originally thought. For this reason it’s a great idea to assess your merchant account statement to see if rates are in line and that your most frequently used cards and transaction types are getting the best rate possible. By going over your statement, you can see exactly what you pay per transaction and get details about your most common transaction types and credit card used to get the process going. Knowing how to untangle the various levels of pricing rates and fees can be daunting if you don’t know what they mean. If you are unfamiliar with what these rates and fees mean on your statement companies like National Transaction can perform the review for you. Free of charge.
Ultimately the best thing to have is a merchant account service provider that will take the time to go over your business with an eye lowering your rates and fees. The savings can be significant. As a business grows it changes and there should be an ongoing strategy at maintaining the best processing rates and fees possible. Today with so many different credit card types, like rewards cards, airline miles programs and more it can pay off to check once or twice a year.
Posted in Best Practices for Merchants, Credit card Processing, Electronic Payments, Merchant Services Account Tagged with: account, American Express, bank, card, credit, fees, MasterCard, merchant, process, Processing, Rates, services, Visa MasterCard American Express
August 13th, 2013 by Admin
MasterCard who has endorsed Google Wallet on the Sprint network will now endorse the ISIS network for mobile wallet solutions. Both Google and Sprint have not joined ISIS and it is interesting to see card issuers invest in both platforms. With Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile in alliance with ISIS, could Sprint be next? Google? Well count Visa and MasterCard as Isis partners. After securing American Express both Visa and MasterCard will now have their credit cards available in Isis’ Wallet. What will be in your mobile wallet?
Many mobile wallet providers are looking at the various options for electronic transaction processing. Will NFC beat out all the others? It’s hard to say but with Apple having yet to release an iPhone model with the chip on board, it could be a yet unseen technology that wins out. QR Codes and Carrier billing are gaining traction for devices without NFC installed and SmartSD cards are coming equipped with NFC to extend devices that have a card slot available.
With device limitations, mobile wallets are still in flux. There are approximately 5 different types of mobile wallets today. There are digital bank accounts similar to prepaid credit cards offered by banks and mostly used for person to person or P2P payments. Mobile payment apps that link payment accounts like those offered by Starbucks or PayPal. Card containers like Apple Passbook store credit cards and loyalty rewards card information and can even fill in forms requesting that information. Similarly, Credential and Card containers store credit card and loyalty rewards but also store identity credentials.
True mobile wallets directly mimic a physical wallet and allow the customer to chose between various credit cards, debit cards even electronic benefits transfer or EBT cards at the point of sale. These wallets are typically app based for both iPhone and Android smartphones and tablets. These wallets can link account information to a point of sale terminal via NFC or other methods for a secure electronic transaction.
Branding and Banks
In recent times Visa, MasterCard and American Express signs at the point-of-sale was a branding element designed to instill confidence for the consumer. With digital wallets becoming the interface for payments, this branding may fade into the background. Yet payment card issuers find themselves in a precarious position. The big three are participating in multiple digital wallet programs in order to not be excluded. This early in the game there are multiple movers and shakers like Square, PayPal, Lemon, Google and now banks and cellular carriers getting into the game, no one knows who consumers and merchants will eventually prefer over the others. It’s like a wait and see game that forces them to play. As banks enter the arena they are favored to win because of the solid loyalty they enjoy from their customers. Though they may not be fair in other categories, they win the security of their customers.
Posted in Credit card Processing, Digital Wallet Privacy, Electronic Payments, Mobile Payments, Mobile Point of Sale, Near Field Communication, Point of Sale, Smartphone, smartSD Cards, Visa MasterCard American Express Tagged with: American Express, Android, Apple, AT&T, google, Iphone, ISIS, MasterCard, PayPal, Square, Starbucks, T-Mobile, Verizon, Visa MasterCard American Express
Ron Klien, also known as the “Grandfather of Possibilities” is an exceptional entrepreneur, business consultant, mentor and inventor. “I solve situations by simplifying them”, says Klein. At 77, the Philadelphia native is the inventor of the magnetic strip found on nearly all of today’s credit cards. The “validity checking system” as his patent reads is a magnetic strip on the back of a plastic card that functions much like a cassette recorder. Rather than recording sounds the magnetic strip records characters that can be ‘played’ into a credit card swipe reader. Read more of this article »
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: credit card, electronic device, magnetic strip, MasterCard, merchant account, process, reader, swipe reader, terminal, Visa MasterCard American Express
Any business that acknowledges Credit Card payments should be compliant with the directions and guidelines set out by the Payment Card Industry or be what is called ‘PCI compliant’. This is not commonly understood but any merchant, despite of the number of transactions, which acknowledges or conveys any cardholder information, either by phone or electronically must be PCI compliant. It’s all about holding customer’s facts and figures safe and not leaving your business revealed to hackers. And with an ever expanding use of cards, be they debit or Credit Cards, this is evolving a very important theme. Read more of this article »
Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with: American Express, credit card processing, Data Security Standard, DSS, MasterCard, Microsoft Windows Server, Payment Card Industry, PCI, Visa MasterCard American Express, Workstation 2000
In discussions about merchant service providers, Square and PayPal entering talks is a given. Sqaure offers free credit card readers to entice merchants to switch their credit card processing to them. PayPal recently launched an initiative to expand it’s reach into retail stores and offers to waive processing fees through 2013. With the coming rush to mobile transaction processing more companies are entering the fray. AT&T, Verizon, T-mobile and Sprint are looking to get into the credit card transaction processing gig as they already carry that data over their cellular networks. ISIS Wallet and Google’s digital wallet bring credit card transactions to Android smartphones and tablets, and Visa is expected to launch its Visa Ready program as it rolls out test merchants. Read more of this article »
Posted in Mobile Payments Tagged with: Android, bluetooth, Chip & PIN, credit card processing, Digital Wallet, EMV, fees, google, ISIS, m-commerce, merchant, merchant account, nfc, payment processor, PayPal, Rates, Square, transactions, Visa MasterCard American Express
Visa is going all out against cash driving the adoption of mobile payment services. In Europe Visa expects that over 50 million contactless payments will be made each month by years end. Head of Visa’s mobile business Sandra Alzetta expects a wave of NFC enabled smartphones from smartphone and tablet makers such as Samsung, HTC and LG. The European versions will ship with Visa’s mobile PayWave and Mobile wallet services driving their growth in mobile payment services. Read more of this article »
Posted in Mobile Payments Tagged with: Digital Wallet, HTC, LG, nfc, point of sale, POS, Samsung, Visa MasterCard American Express
