Email received from authorize.net updates MasterCard partial authorization requirement. “In late March, we sent an e-mail regarding MasterCard and Discover’s modifications to the rules concerning the processing of debit, pre-paid and gift cards for merchants located in the United States.

Recently MasterCard and Discover relaxed the requirements for e-commerce merchants so that support for partial authorizations and balance responses are no longer required, but recommended best practices. All retail and mobile merchants, however, must still support the requirements.

Additionally, all merchants are still required to support authorization reversals for any non-settled authorizations. The deadline for all Authorize.Net merchants to support the requirements is still June 30, 2011.

IMPORTANT: Although no longer a requirement for e-commerce merchants, Authorize.Net intends to support partial authorizations and balance responses for all merchants. We highly recommend that your merchants provide support for these features as they can help decrease declined transactions and potentially increase sales.

You can review the timeline of when we expect support for each processor in our Partial Authorization FAQs at < http://www.authorize.net/support/pafaqs#when>http://www.authorize.net/support/pafaqs#when.

We have also updated our FAQs to reflect the latest changes. If your merchants have questions, please refer them to the FAQs at http://www.authorize.net/support/pafaqs/ for additional information, including integration updates, value-adding services and more.”

Can I use a single merchant account if I have more than one ecommerce site? By regulation, you must have a different merchant account for each domain name.  The domain name, not the company name, must appear on consumer credit card statements. This is a field entered on the merchant application.  The main purpose is to reduce consumer confusion and thus reduce chargebacks.

What if you have single page checkouts on the same domain name?

For example, the merchant may sell something with a one page checkout. One page is mydomain.com/product1. Another is mydomain.com/product2. They do not link to a single shopping cart checkout for some internal reason. You could possibly use one merchant account for both web pages, provided it’s the same company and shares the same federal tax ID. In some cases the merchant may want to set up a separate terminal identification (TID) to assist in the reconciliation process. Each TID would have it’s own totals, but all the data appears on one merchant statement, under one merchant account. To set up TID’s, contact your merchant processor.

Non-profit organizations sometimes have this with fundraising on their web sites. The non-profit has multiple events and donor options each with a simple one page checkout specific to that event or donation. Provided the rules are met above, you can probably use one merchant account. Always check with your processor for confirmation of your situation.

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internet merchant account requirements

Is the Durbin amendment good for consumers? For Merchants? Readers outside the industry probably look at the news articles and think it’s all good. However, if you dig deeper and hear opposing business views, you may begin to question those conclusions. Like the complex interchange system itself, the complexities of repercussions also need to be dealt with to determine what’s best for everyone.

While there are surely self serving interests in some of these articles, I think it’s worth perusing to come to your own conclusions.

List of articles of interest:

From Visa’s Viewpoints blog June 17, 2010: Industry Experts Agree: Problematic Durbin Amendment misses the Mark

The Root Interview: Russell Simmons on His RushCard