Payment Standardization Tools for Merchants

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

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.

CenPOS Will Secure Payments at World’s largest Kia Dealer With P2P and EMV

Rick Case Kia Florida EMV

World’s largest Kia dealer in Sunrise Florida will secure payments with CenPOS  and EMV.

Rick Case Automotive, my first CenPOS customer and one the earliest adopters in 2009,  is opening the worlds largest Kia dealership in January 2015 exclusively with CenPOS P2P encrypted signature capture terminals and mobile readers. Verifone MX915 signature capture terminals will accept EMV chip cards and are NFC enabled for mobile wallets. Rick Case continues to be an industry leader in security protection for both customers and dealerships.

Verifone MX915 signature capture terminal

Verifone MX915 signature capture terminals support P2P, EMV and are NFC enabled.

In P2P encryption, the card data is encrypted at the swipe and is decrypted at another point before going on to a credit card processor. This reduces the risk of compromising data-in-flight, a common issue with many of the recent widely published data breaches.

emv smart card

EMV chip smart card.

The Card Association announced in August 2011 its EMV migration plan for the US as well as the benefits of EMV compliance, including a liability shift for merchants. Under the current migration plan, merchants processing 75 percent or more of their transactions captured by EMV terminals will be relieved 100 percent from Account Data Compromise compliance. Merchants that do not migrate to EMV and/or are utilizing providers that are not EMV certified will assume 100 percent of the POS fraud liability and retain 100 percent of the PCI burden and related costs. EMV cards are nearly impossible to counterfeit, unlike their magnetic strip counterparts.

In addition to securing retail, Rick Case will use token billing and other CenPOS technology for card not present transactions. For sales or more information, contact Christine Speedy, 954-942-0483.

Stone, Marble, automotive Dealer Design of the Future: Impact of Mobile Apps

Design tips for commercial architects and interior planning designers. Mobile applications and other technology applications can impact floor planning. We’ve seen an explosion of automotive dealership renovation or outright new builds. Whether now or later, where and how customers pay their bill is changing. The same applies to large scale facilities like stone, marble, lumber, and other stores that cater to designers.

Trends and Planning Implications for Service Advisors Accepting Payments.

There is an explosion of service advisors accepting payments, in part due to cloud payment options. Some of the designs I’ve seen are not conducive to best practices for payment card industry data security standards (PCI Compliance), or are just not customer friendly. The main types of payment acceptance are:

  • Credit card magnetic stripe reader wedge that attaches to computer screen. Spotted at a newly renovated dealership in Fredericksburg MD- a high top counter that obscures the desk and computers of service advisors. While creating If the computer screen sits below a high top counter, the card will be out of site of the consumer. This presents significant risk to the merchant as the cashier or advisor could quickly photograph the card with a smart device, or swipe it on a secondary device.
  • Signature Capture Terminal. Consider that the consumer must see the terminal screen in order to see messages and sign their name. Unlike grocery stores, most dealers do not mount the terminal onto a permanent bracket which includes a swivel to change the angle of view.  Given that the terminal will be placed on the desktop, 36 inches to 42 inches from floor is a comfortable range to accommodate viewing. Those hightop 50 inch circular customer service desks are too high for customers to see the and sign on the terminal.

Top Credit Card Processing Services Ratings Revealed by topcreditcardprocessors.com 2022

Who are the best credit card processing companies right now? I received an email from  topcreditcardprocessors.com for the month of March 2022. Each month they report the best credit card processing services around the world to assist businesses in selecting the best service to meet their specific needs. But how useful are these lists?

Their list for Best 10 top credit card processing services for March 2022 are:

1- PAYARC

2- Beacon Payments -First Data ISO

3- RTP Merchant Services – Web site does not exist

4- Electronic Transfer, Inc-  ISO / MSP of Merrick Bank

5- US Alliance Group- ISO of Wells Fargo Bank and several others

6- BankCard USA- ISO of Wells Fargo Bank and others

7- S & S Bank Card Systems – MSP/ISO of Elavon

8- PayProTec Elite, LLC – Web site does not exist

9- Harbortouch- ISO / MSP of Merrick Bank; restaurant and small business POS solutions owned by Shift4

10 -Argus Merchant Processing- ISO of Wells Fargo Bank

Number one on the list is PAYARC, a registered ISO/SP of Commercial Bank of California. First Data usually ranks as one of the top 3 largest US acquirers annually by dollar volume.  Why isn’t First Data on the list? The last time I checked, it was because the “meticulous evaluation process” requires that you pay to get on the list. That was the only criteria years ago. Their list is admittedly completely subjective. The latest disclaimer terms essentially say it’s possible to get on the list without paying, but in my limited review, I still didn’t see any of the big 5, which include Elavon, First Data, and Paymentech, among others. In their algorithm for getting selected for the top credit card processors, money is not listed as an item for consideration, but it is.

Here’s my main takeaways from this list:

  1. Pay to play makes the list questionable value.
  2. The “carefully analyzed” list includes two companies with defunct web sites. Are they out of business? Functioning web site from the links they provided would seem to be pretty basic.
  3. Never choose a vendor from a “best” anything list. My clients are primarily business to business, including high dollar item dealers (cars, trucks etc) and manufacturers. The knowledge to service these markets and recommend the best solution is entirely different than a restaurant or single location retail business. Pick a vendor (or salesperson) with experience in your core type of transaction.

Disclaimer: The information herein is the personal opinion of Christine Speedy based on years in the industry, attendance at industry trade show events, industry training, and reviews of all company web sites mentioned in this blog post.