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Here is an interactive list of Frequently Asked Questions by our partners and merchants. You may also want to check out the Tutorials section of the website.

If at anytime, you cannot find an answer to your question, we would like to hear from you. Please call us toll-free at 888-752-8644.

• Customers want to pay with credit cards
• No more trips to the bank or bounced checks to worry about
• Triple your sales

Triple your sales

Studies show that business who start accepting credit cards can experience a huge increase in volume, almost overnight. The average size of credit card orders have also been show to be up to three times larger than cash and check orders. The bottom line is people tend to buy more when they pay with a credit card.
 

No more trips to the bank or bounced checks to worry about

Do you get tired of constantly driving to the bank to deposit checks hoping that the checks will clear?
 
By using credit cards as one of your primary methods of payment you can rest easy knowing that your payments are guaranteed. Your money will be deposited directly into your bank account, reducing the overall time it takes to process orders.
 
You will have more time to concentrate on your business and make sales. No more trips to the bank or bounced checks!
 

Customers want to pay with credit cards

Not very many people haul around a wad of cash in their pockets anymore. Consumers like things to be convenient, and will use whatever the easiest method is for them to purchase their goods and services.
 
More and more customers are turning to credit and debit cards as their preferred payment method. Credit cards make transactions easy for consumers, they can track their expenses, receive benefits such as frequent flier miles or other affinity points, and gives more flexibility to manage cash flow.
 

What is PCI compliance?

Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance refers to a set of standards created to help protect payment card data from exposure that could lead to financial loss. The area of PCI compliance which applies to merchants and service providers is called the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS consists of requirements developed by the PCI Security Standards Council which was founded by the major Payment Brands (Visa & MasterCard). The goal of these requirements is to implement consistent data security procedures across the payment card industry. Validating PCI compliance is a requirement that the Payment Brands have put in place as a proactive measure to address data security needs.

How come I haven’t heard about PCI compliance or validation before?

PCI compliance standards have existed for years. ALL merchants, regardless of what payment processor they use, are in fact required to comply with the PCI DSS and this is required as part of the Terms and Conditions of entering into a merchant
agreement. We are offering an online validation solution through PCI TOOLKIT™ to help increase our merchants’ awareness and assist in individual compliance efforts.

What does this mean for my business?

Becoming PCI compliant and maintaining that status will help you reduce threats to your business and your customers. Any merchant or service provider (i.e. payment gateway, shopping cart, web hosting company, etc.) that accepts, handles, stores, or transmits credit card information must validate PCI compliance each year. The validation process will help educate you about what steps to take in order to make your business PCI compliant.  Does validating PCI compliance guarantee a data breach will not occur?  PCI compliance requirements were put in place specifically to help protect merchants from a data breach, but they do not guarantee protection. While PCI compliance does not absolutely guarantee 100% protection against a breach, being PCI compliant does absolutely increase data security and helps protect businesses from easily avoidable threats. As technology and new data security threats develop, it is important to stay up to date on PCI compliance requirements and make sure you make any changes necessary in order to remain compliant under the most current set of standards.

A merchant account is a contract between an acquiring bank and a merchant under which an acquiring bank extends a line of credit to a merchant, who wishes to accept payment through a credit card transaction. Without such a contract merchants cannot accept credit card payments by any of the major credit card brands.

Why Do I need one?

A merchant account gives you the ability to accept credit cards and debit cards as payment for your goods and services. Having the ability to accept credit/debit cards provides your clients with an extremely popular and easy payment option, beyond cash and checks.

Studies have shown that merchants can typically increase their business by 30 – 70% by just accepting credit/debit cards as a form of payment. Clients are also more willing to purchase higher cost goods and spend more money when they are using a payment method that offers them repayment flexibility.

Without the ability to perform electronic transactions through a merchant account online and e-commerce businesses have no way to receive fast guaranteed payments from the clients.

There are 3 basic types of merchant accounts:

Retail (brick and mortar)
Moto (Mail Order Telephone Order)
E-Commerce (online internet sales)

There are 3 basic types of merchant accounts:

• Retail (brick and mortar)
• Moto (Mail Order Telephone Order)
• E-Commerce (online internet sales)

A Gateway is an e-commerce service that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar. It is the equivalent of a physical point of sale credit card terminal located in most retail stores. Gateways protect credit card and details encrypt sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant and also between merchant and payment processor (the merchant account).

Why Do I need one?

It allows you to perform ‘real-time credit card processing’ in conjunction with your online shopping cart program. You can log in to your gateway to manage manage your credit card charges through your browser including inputting credit card charges, viewing charges, processing returns, reporting, and performing searches. Your gateway literally replaces the ‘keypad’ or ‘swiping device’ that you see in most brick and mortar businesses and is essentially a virtual credit card terminal. Fraud protection is performed by the gateway, which helps your business minimize fraudulent orders.

A Discount Rate is a fee that is charged to the merchant for payment processing services. It is a percentage of each credit card transaction that is charged to the merchant services account by a credit card processing company. This charge is taken from the gross sales amount. It is a primary service fee charged by a processor for handling a merchant’s credit card transactions – the process that takes place when a cardholder makes a purchase with a credit card.

The four components of a discount rate are:

• Interchange
• Dues and Assessments
• Network Costs
• Margin (difference between Cost and Expense)

A request for transaction approval sent from the merchant to the card issuer at the time of the sale. This step prevents sales on credit cards that are over the limit, have unsatisfactory history or may be reported stolen.

• Cardholder presents the card to the merchant
• Merchant swipes the card
• The Acquirer transmits information about the transaction using a “front-end-network”
• The request is transmitted to the appropriate association
• The issuer verifies that the account is valid
• The merchant receives the authorization response

The merchant receives one of four authorization responses:

• Approved, declined or card not accepted
• Call, call center or referrals
• Pick up card
• No match

The process of transmitting sales information to the card-issuing bank for collection and reimbursement of funds to the merchant and monthly billing to you, the cardholder.

Here is how the process works:

• After receiving authorization for the transaction, the merchant captures the account number, purchase amount and card expiration- the merchant submits a settlement file from the POS terminal.
• The Acquirer passes this information through the back end settlement system, which forwards the transactions to the associations.
• The back end system then deposits the amount in the merchant’s bank account.
• Acting on behalf of the acquirer, the back-end processor issues to the merchant a statement every month summarizing the processed transactions.
• The issuer then bills the cardholder through a monthly statement for the transaction amounts debited from their account/line of credit.

The Address Verification System (AVS) is used to verify the identity of the person claiming to own the credit card. The system crosschecks the billing address of the credit card provided by the user with the address on file at the credit card company.

Specifically the AVS verifies the numeric portions of a cardholders billing address. For example, if your address is 520 Main Street, Provo, UT 84601, AVS will check 520 and 84601. Sometimes AVS checks additional digits such as an apartment number, other times it does not.

If the AVS does not find a match between the billing address of the credit card provided by the user with the address on file at the credit card company the merchant will most likely be charged a higher interchange rate due to the risk of the transaction.

Chargebacks occur when customers contact their banks to request refunds for credit-card purchases. Chargebacks often happen when customers are dissatisfied with (or did not receive) purchases. Low chargeback ratios are essential to maintaining your credit card processing privileges. Our relationship managers advise merchants on best practices and help them minimize chargebacks

The Processor is the company that handles initial underwriting, account setup, processing and customer service for Acquiring Banks.

Merchants contract with a processor to handle all their electronic transaction processing needs.

Banks that sponsor merchant accounts for businesses. Processors contract with the Acquiring banks in order to provide Merchant Accounts to individual merchants.

These banks may also be Issuing banks.

Banks that issue credit/debit cards to consumers.

An Issuing Bank (Cardholder Bank) extends credit to customers through bankcard accounts. The bank issues the credit card and receives the cardholder’s payment at the end of the billing period.

Visa and MasterCard are non-profit organizations comprised of member banks, each governed by a separate Board of Directors. Independently, they created rules and regulations that determine how they operate.

Visa and MasterCard charge assessments and fees to their member banks based on the bankcard volumes of cardholder purchases.

The Associations of Visa/MasterCard perform several functions:

• License banks to issue cards to consumers
• Develop and update operating regulations
• Maintain national and international authorization and settlement systems
• Regulate Interchange
• Advertise and Promote

Interchange is the fee paid by the acquirer to the issuer for services performed and expenses incurred during the interchange settlement process.

Interchange is managed by the Associations and is standardized so banks and merchants can use them – worldwide.

Fees paid by member banks to Visa and MasterCard to Support Marketing and Operating Activities.

The Network is the system that facilitates the Authorization and Financial Settlement from the card issuer to the acquirer. There is a cost associated with the system charged to all processors.

Online/PIN Based Debit Cards

• Created to replace checks and cash
• PIN Number Required
• Similar to a credit card, but ride over regional ATM debit card networks and provides the ability to connect to the live balance of the account holder

Offline Debit/Signature Debit

• Transactions via a Visa Check Card or MasterMoney Card that is processed as a dual message through the traditional credit card process
• A Signature is required instead of a PIN
• Debits directly from Cardholders checking account with the issuing bank

Credit Cards can be issued from one of two sources:

• Banks which are part of the Visa or MasterCard Association.
• Non Bank entities- which represent corporate entities that provide credit services to their customers, such as American Express, Diner’s Club, Fuel/Fleet Companies, Department Stores, etc. These cards are part of an independent closed-network.

Each of these sources can offer different types of cards, including:

• A consumer credit card.
• Commercial/corporate or company cards.
• Purchasing cards.
• Rewards cards.
• Debit and check cards.

Debit/ATM cards are payment cards that debit –or subtract- money directly from a checking or savings account, as if the consumer were paying with cash or a check.

• Debit card/ATM cards can be used for purchases where merchants accept cards from various bank networks such as NYCE and STAR. A Personal Identification Number (PIN) is required for all transactions.

Check Cards are similar to debit cards in that they also deduct money directly from a checking or savings account. However, check cards also have access to the VISA Network and therefore display the VISA logo.

• Check Cards have the added convenience of being useable anywhere VISA is accepted. Cardholders can normally choose to either sign for the purchase or use their PIN.

Today’s credit cards are designed with multiple complex security features to prevent the possibility of fraud:

The card account number

• The card’s unique account number is the key piece of information needed to conduct a financial transaction and must be carefully protected.

Magnetic strip

• The magnetic strip on the back of the card is encoded with binary information, which identifies the card as authentic.

Signature panel

• The signature panel is intended to document the owner’s handwriting so a forged signature on a receipt can be detected.

Card verification number

• The verification number is a secondary security feature on the signature panel.
• A three digit code that appears just to the right of the signature panel. This is used primarily in card-not-present transactions to verify that the customer is in possession of a valid Visa card at the time of sale.

Note: Visa refers to this as the CVV2 number. MasterCard refers to it as the CVC2 number and American Express/Discover refer to it as the CID number.

Basis points are calculated on total sales dollars.

A basis point is equal to .0001, 0.01% or $0.01 cent per $100.

A Basis point is 1-100th of 1 percent.