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.

Marble and Stone omnichannel payment solutions

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Marble and stone manufacturers and distributors that use traditional payment technology will suffer from higher credit card processing fees, PCI Compliance problems, and increased fraud risk. This article identifies the main problems and how to fix them.

PCI Compliance Problems

It’s a fact there will be card not present transactions. Credit card authorization forms have been a primary tool to mitigate fraud risk, but they’re a PCI compliance nightmare:

  • Merchants cannot request CVV2 on any paper form, even if it will be destroyed later. (Visa Core Rules October 2014). Without CVV2, the merchant will lose any future fraudulent card dispute.
  • Forms contain sensitive data. It’s virtually impossible to keep the signature on file and be PCI Compliant.
  • Employees have access to credit card numbers
  • The receiving fax needs to be secured, and if digital, any memory securely wiped when the machine is replaced.

PCI Compliance Solutions

  • PCI compliant credit card authorization form for variable recurring billing
  • Tokenization to store card data outside ERP and other software to reduce scope and burden
  • Customers self-payment solutions so employees have no access to card data. Options include online hosted pay page and electronic bill presentment & payment (See also How to get CVV2 and be PCI Compliant)

Mixed Retail and Card Not Present Transaction Interchange Rate Problems

When a merchant has a retail merchant account, magnetic stripe data is expected with the transaction. When it’s not included, the merchant pays higher non-qualified interchange fees.  There are no desktop terminals, and few cloud based solutions that support level III processing for retail transactions. This is significant because most cards that qualify are MasterCard and the average savings is .75%.

When a merchant has a MOTO (mail and phone order) merchant account, and then swipes a card, they get the benefit of a signed receipt, but not the benefit of lower swiped merchant fees.

Mixed Retail and Card Not Present Transaction Interchange Rate Solutions

Marble and Stone merchants MUST have a solution with interchange rate optimization that solves the above and numerous other issues related to omnichannel credit card processing.

Multiple Locations, Centralized Billing Problems

With centralized billing, when there’s a dispute, the merchant needs to present the signed receipt. It’s time consuming and inefficient to store and locate paper receipts.

Multiple Locations, Centralized Billing Solutions

Signature capture terminals are essential. Mobile is not an acceptable substitute for signature capture, because marble and stone merchants benefit from pin debit and other optimization capabilities that are only possible with multi-lane terminals. EMV, NFC and P2PE are recommended.

CenPOS is the only payment gateway and payment engine that solves every problem listed above. CenPOS has solved these problems for years, while Authorize.net, Paypal, Payflow Pro, and even newer alternative gateways have not caught up. Contact Christine Speedy 954-942-0483 for sales and ERP or other software integrations.

 

 

 

 

How to get CVV2 and be PCI Compliant: request a payment

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Credit card authorization form pci

Credit card authorization form example is not PCI Compliant.

According to Visa Core Rules, October 2014 page 266, Merchant Must Not Request the Card Verification Value 2 data on any paper Order Form. So how can a merchant get the CVV for card not present customers?  Online payments, request a payment and electronic bill presentment and payment all solve the problem. Below are solutions possible with CenPOS, a merchant centric payment processing platform. Other payment gateways may not have the same functionality.

Online payments, passive:

hosted paypage online payments

  • Secure hosted pay page is managed by the payment gateway so payment data never touches merchant web servers.
  • Customers can store card data for charges to be applied later. In this case, the user registers, creating an account so they can manage payment methods including ACH, credit card and wire. A zero dollar authorization is performed when a credit card is stored, and CVV can be validated. Once validated, it’s never needed again, and therefore is never stored.  A random token ID is generated, which both the cardholder and merchant can see, but neither will ever have access to sensitive data again. The cardholder can also update the expiration date, but if the CVV changes with a future card replacement, then a new token must be created.
  • Customer can make payments for any amount without logging in.

Request a Payment or Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP or EIPP), proactive.

  • Reduces accounts receivable friction.

EBPP Electronic Bill Presentment & Payment

  • Non-Integrated – Merchants use the CenPOS EBPP portal to create the payment request, including optional invoice detail. The customer is sent a text and or email with a payment link.
  • Integrated – same as above, except the invoice is sent from accounting or financial software such as ERP.

With EBPP, customers have a portal to pay multiple invoices, view payments, download invoices, and manage payment methods.

At a minimum, merchants with card not present customers should offer online payments as a way to enable customers to securely pay a bill. If a signature is required, have the customer print and sign the receipt, and email that authorization back, which is more valuable than traditional credit card authorization forms.

Need a secure solution but don’t want to change your merchant account? No problem. Contact Christine Speedy for secure, cost effective and efficient solutions.