Author Archives: Christine Speedy

About Christine Speedy

B2B cloud payment acceptance solutions and CenPOS enterprise cloud payment solutions global sales.

Small business merchant service rates telemarketing scam

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A telemarketer called from “Express Processing Payments”, with the pitch, “Have you heard about new regulated rates that Visa and Mastercard introduced for small businesses only?” And further, “…reduce your rates 20-50%.” Let’s dispel this claim right now. There’s no such thing.

The only ‘recent’ government regulation regarding rates, are those from the Durbin Amendment, part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. In August 2011, I reported on the proliferation of robo calls that followed the federal legislation for debit card transactions:

Under the final rule, the maximum permissible interchange fee that an issuer may receive for an electronic debit transaction will be the sum of 21 cents per transaction and 5 basis points multiplied by the value of the transaction. This provision regarding debit card interchange fees is effective on October 1, 2011.

What does this mean to merchants?

  1. The maximum the issuer (if they meet regulated size) can receive is .05% plus $.21 plus $.01 if qualified.
  2. What merchants pay are determined by the salesperson selling them.
  3. Visa debit interchange rate for CPS Retail was 0.80% + $0.25 per transaction prior to the new legislation. If a small business received a 50% reduction in debit fees, the average small business processor still increases their profits significantly.

Payment Standardization Tools for Merchants

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2015 merchant survey standardizationAccording to a new 2015 ETA member survey, lack of standardization is one of the top pain points for merchants, relative to payments. CenPOS industry leading payment standardization tools are often cited by merchants and developers as a top reason for choosing the merchant centric payment engine.

Partial list of standardization tools that help merchants increase efficiencies, EBITDA, and reduce PCI Compliance burden:

Two powerful items to meet stricter PCI 3.0 Compliance rules are restricting user functions and access to data by job function. Conversely, when new features are added, user permissions can be updated in an instant simply by updating the role.

  • Role management – create unlimited roles, restricting permissions by job function from cashier to 3rd party accountant.
  • User management – Easily manage users and assign roles. Someone got a promotion? Just reassign to a new role. Employee no longer with the company? Remove access, but not the audit trail of their prior interactions and transaction records.

Scalable hierarchy: Whether one or one thousand locations, CenPOS provides standardized reporting, user management, role management, a suite of risk management tools, including customized fraud mitigation tools, and more. This enables merchants to not only better manage payments, but standardize training but also internal and external customer experiences.

Flexibility: Payment acceptance rules can be updated in an instant. This is especially important due to rapidly changing regulatory, PCI and other payment related rules. For example, when California passed a law about prohibiting collecting consumer zip codes, it went into effect immediately, and the fines were stiff for violating the rule. CenPOS merchants were compliant overnight.

 

CenPOS certifies with Visa Accelerated Connection Platform

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cenpos payments logoCenPOS enables direct connection to Visa for merchants by certifying with the Visa Accelerated Connection Platform

Miami, FL (PRWEB) April 07, 2015

CenPOS, a payment technology provider, announced today that it has certified to Visa Accelerated Connection Platform (ACP). These continued efforts enable CenPOS merchants globally to take advantage of Visa’s transaction authorization and capture services, end-to-end encryption, tokenization and integrated redemptions; thus, bypassing the existing core bankcard processors for these and future Visa services. This connection not only enables merchants to connect to more than 2 billion Visa cardholders worldwide, but also connects them directly with the rest of the card brands as well. A direct connection to the card brands creates value and reduces PCI cost for merchants by encrypting data at every point of the transaction. More importantly, merchants now can leverage Visa’s technology infrastructure and achieve better financial results while providing their customers with an enhanced payment offering.

“We at CenPOS believe that this new connection creates significant value for our merchants and gives them the control they have been seeking for years, especially their ability to freely choose financial providers without the fear of any business disruption and/or changes in their daily workflow. It makes business and financial sense for merchants to go directly to the card brands and bypass their acquirers for these services,” said Jorge Fernandez, CenPOS’s Co-Founder and Chairman. “We at CenPOS are always on the cutting edge of payment technology. As evidenced by our recent EMV certification in the US, we are committed to delivering innovative solutions for our clients globally”, added Fernandez.

About CenPOS
CenPOS is a merchant-centric, end-to-end payments engine that drives enterprise-class solutions for businesses, saving them time and money, while improving their customer engagement. CenPOS’ secure, cloud-based solution optimizes acceptance for all payment types across multiple channels without disrupting the merchant’s banking relationships. For additional information please call 877.630.7960.

Updated Card Absent Chargeback Rule – 540 days

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Business to business, automotive  and parts dealers, are especially stung by chargebacks for disputes relating to the quality of merchandise or services received. Effective for transactions processed on or after April 18, 2015, is a new clause that can increase the chargeback period from 120 days to 540 days for US and Canada.

Both Visa and MasterCard have implemented the new rule. I didn’t find a similar rule in a quick research of Discover and American Express, but my research was not exhaustive.  The rules are not identical and readers are advised to read the rules thoroughly, as this article does not include the full context for when the rule applies.

Visa Core Rules and MasterCard Chargeback Guide October 30, 2014:

  • Visa Chargeback Reason Code 53 – Not as Described or Defective Merchandise
  • MasterCard Reason Code 4853—Cardholder Dispute—Defective/Not as Described

One goal of the MasterCard rule appears to be providing customer recourse for ongoing interrupted services. The customer paid for something, they complained and worked it out within 120 days, but then there were recurring quality issues.

They both make it clear that a customer does not have to return goods and services in order to dispute at a later date. This is a change from the old rule.

How can merchants protect themselves in a dispute for these reasons?

  • Written return policy and proof of acknowledgement
  • All guarantees in writing acknowledged
  • Signed sales orders; include specific deliverables and policies at the time of agreement
  • All written communications, including emails, prior to and after the sale as part of the dispute process.
  • Save a log of phone calls with who, what, when, to submit as evidence.
  • For online payments, require check box to acceptance of your terms of sale

Note: the 540 day rule has been in existence, however, the rules have been updated with more specificity, certainly for Visa.