Tag Archives: card not present

Elavon wins best CNP credit card processor awards

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Elavon Receives industry recognition for the Third consecutive year

Elavon, a global payments provider and subsidiary of U.S. Bank, won both the Judges Choice and People’s Choice awards for best processor 2020 Card Not Present (CNP) Awards, sweeping the Best Processor category for the third year in a row.

Best Processor: Judges Choice

The company provides end-to-end payment processing solutions and services to more than 1.3 million customers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico. It transmits data safely three billion times each year and enables $300 billion worth of commerce. Its solutions are designed to solve pain points for small to enterprise-sized businesses.

“Elavon has been a leader in payment processing, leveraging the world’s best technologies for our partners from large worldwide enterprises, to locally owned small businesses,” the company said. “We extend powerful payment solutions for all payment types and processing environments, ensuring that your business is well-connected. Elavon is consistently rated among the top global payment providers, with more than one million customers trusting us to process their payments.”

Last year Elavon also won Best Processor in both categories.

Christine Speedy, Founder 3D Merchant Services, is a credit card processing expert with specialized expertise in card not present and is an authorized reseller for the suite of Elavon products and services. Christine is also a Qualified Integrator and Reseller certified by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, a requirement for all level 4 merchants, defined as less than 20,000 Visa or MasterCard e-commerce transactions annually, and all other merchants processing up to 1 million Visa or MasterCard transactions annually. Services include standalone and integrated technology, optional merchant services and other solutions. 954-942-0483.

Remote checkout with credit card

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Businesses are shifting to remote credit checkout to avoid close contact with customers. Remote checkout systems range from cheap to pricey, but when comparing safe and secure solutions, it’s important to know what questions to ask to maximize profits and mitigate risk. In particular, telephone credit card transactions, text, and work from home practices directly impact profits and risk.

A popular practice is to eliminate customer entry into facilities. Communication methods include expansion of telemedicine and secure portals. Two areas are lacking: text and credit card payment. Even the most advanced facilities fall short in one way or another.

Credit card number via phone problems for typical retail merchant account:

  1. Merchants are prohibited from writing sensitive cardholder data on paper (Visa sec. 5).
  2. Key entering into computer:
    1. Results in 100% invalid – yet issuer approved- authorizations*, typically increasing costs 30-100% per transaction.
    1. Increases data breach risk with home and office hardware and network in scope for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI).
    1. Employees access to cardholder data an added risk
  3. Key entering into desktop terminal:
    1. Same authorization problem as above (See merchant statement for non-qual, STD, EIRF, Level I etc)
    1. All transactions at risk of consumer or issuer chargeback since EMV chip/swip data expected but not received.
  4. Ties up phone lines for already overwhelmed staff;  another data breach risk
  5. Note: Digital forms that can be decrypted are unacceptable
  6. If storing/tokenizing cardholder data, most solutions are PCI compliant, not but not compliant for network (Vcardholder agreement and future transaction authorizations

Card not present alternatives:

SMS/text with secure pay

  1. 80-95% of Americans have a smart phone; all age groups, including seniors, are texting
  2. Puts customers in control of entering, storing, managing cardholder data

Email with secure pay- also eliminates employee access to cardholder data. A growing threat is business email compromise with phishing schemes increasing during Covid-19 crisis.

Hosted pay page- I do not recommend as this is not efficient during quick check in and check out needs.

What merchants should look for in vendor solutions:

  1. 3-D Secure cardholder authentication for customer initiated payments; qualify for reduced card not present rates plus fraud disputes for “I didn’t authorize” disappear. The benefit is much like EMV chip for retail, and merchants can save even more on interchange fees for some cards due to lower risk.
  2. 3rd party app or web based solution that segregates all devices, hardware and networks from scope for PCI, including key entered transactions; The latter can be managed via special terminal, app, or encrypted virtual keypad, perfect for workers at home and on the go.
  3. 3rd party app or web based text solution that eliminates client data from employee devices and hardware, and is compliant with various text/telecom rules (FCC, TCPA etc). If employees are texting on their devices, it’s incredibly difficult or impossible to get that data later if needed in a legal dispute.
  4. Checkout option to enter authorized 3rd party for animal pick up, time of day, and even details about car or truck if desired.
  5. Automated authorization optimization for card present, phone order, card on file and customer initiated transactions. This is either managed by technology (preferred) or multiple merchant accounts. Ok, many probably don’t know what this means, but it’s the difference between employees having to optionally take certain steps and technology automatically managing it.
  6. One-way texting with payment collection has minimal additional compliance burden for various rules.
  7. Two-way texting is much more robust, with even more upside for efficiency (think photo/video, updates throughout the stay, promotional link with notification animal entered surgery, survey at end, and continued opt-in to future marketing). The value of opted-in marketing, when used wisely, cannot be understated.

Merchants will benefit from increased approvals, more profits, happier customers, less phone time, and more secure operations. All of this adds up to both internal and external customer experience improvements during a stressful time dealing with Covid-19 repercussions and beloved animals needing urgent care.

Christine Speedy’s Analysis:

Merchant’s lack the right technology tools, which have been used by other industries for years, to meet new card not present requirements while maximizing profits and mitigating risk. Rapid adoption will reap virtually immediate rewards.

* Issuers will approve most requests if funds are available, but merchants must comply with various card acceptance rules based on how an authorization is requested or pay penalties. For example, a retail merchant account requires EMV chip or swipe data. When the don’t get it, penalties apply. Solutions to dynamically qualify per different rules require a technology update, typically via 3rd party solution.

Research Links:

Card network rules: http://3dmerchant.com/blog/merchant-bulletins-downloads

PCI Compliance: pcisecuritystandards.org

Christine Speedy, Founder 3D Merchant Services, is a credit card processing expert with specialized expertise in card not present and omnichannel. Christine is Qualified Integrator and Reseller certified by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council, a requirement for all level 4 merchants, defined as less than 20,000 Visa or MasterCard e-commerce transactions annually, and all other merchants processing up to 1 million Visa or MasterCard transactions annually. Services include standalone and integrated technology, optional merchant services and other solutions. 954-942-0483.

For more 3D Merchant Services news and information, visit 3Dmerchant.com or  https://www.linkedin.com/in/cspeedy

Contacts:

Christine Speedy

954-942-0483

American Express SafeKey for hotels

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Direct from American Express hospitality industry webinar, hotels number one protection from card not present fraud is American Express SafeKey®. SafeKey leverages the global industry standard, 3-D Secure®*, to detect and reduce online fraud by adding an extra layer of security when Card Members pay online.

How to mitigate 3rd party authorization chargeback risk? Merchant best practices:

  • Ensure the cardholder participated in the initial transactions. Safekey is the best method to prove that, making signatures irrelevant.
  • Get written authorization of what expenses the cardholder will allow.
  • Put cardholder name on the folio.
  • Show where cardholder opted in to all policies, including damages, cancellation etc.
  • Authorization must be CARD NOT PRESENT.
  • Use solution that includes cardholder name in the authorization response; retrievable record.

American Express SafeKey

How does Amex SafeKey impact the customer shopping experience? The cardholder may have some or no difference in the checkout experience, based on many factors, including prior online shopping history. The cardholder may be asked authentication question(s) to confirm it’s really the cardholder.

How does Amex SafeKey impact merchants?

  • Fraud liability for “It wasn’t me, I didn’t authorize it” goes away as liability shifts back to the issuer.
  • For business to business, where cardholder billing and shipping address frequently vary, cardholder authentication plays an important role not available with four digit CID security code validation only.
  • At this writing, American Express merchants do not receive a specific interchange discount as may be available with other card brands.

How can merchants adopt the Amex SafeKey service?

  1. Enroll your company on the American Express web site. https://network.americanexpress.com/globalnetwork/safekey/us/en/merchants-acquirers
  2. Receive e-mail from SafeKey Certification Team with your SafeKey ID and next steps.
  3. SafeKey Certification Team gets approval from Acquirer.
  4. Acquirer and SafeKey Certification Team complete required setup.
  5. Activate 3-D Secure on the application. (Ecommerce shopping cart, payment gateway, or ERP.) Both payment gateway and application must support the service.

* 3-D Secure is a registered trademark of Visa International Service Association in the United States and other countries.

Want to add American Express SafeKey to your business and get a great third party authorization form solution all included? Contact CenPOS global sales and integrations reseller, Christine Speedy, 954-942-0483 for more information.

D365 Finance & Operations Questions To Ask Before Choosing Credit Card Processing Solution

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Upgrading to D365 from Microsoft AX? Engaging a payment processing professional can save boatloads of development time while opening up new ways to engage with customers. Additionally, payment gateway selection directly impacts EBITDA project objectives. What three key questions must be asked when choosing a credit card processing solution for your business to business operation?

I’ll save merchants and consultants reading this a lot of time. Ask the 3 questions and then pretty much disregard the answers. You’re unlikely to find anyone who will be able to answer all three questions adequately so on that basis alone, it’s best to contact a subject matter expert like Christine Speedy, here at 3Dmerchant.com.

  1. Does the payment gateway support Unschedule Credential On File? Virtually every business to business operation stores at least a few credit cards for the occasional customer on file need, which is a good thing because if you’re one of those that require customers to call in each time, that’s negative friction impacting cash flow, profits, and satisfaction. What most businesses don’t know is that the rules and technical specifications for storing cards and processing transactions with stored cards changed tremendously in October 2017. Virtually no payment gateway has upgraded to get compliant, leaving businesses exposed to multiple financial penalty risks. Note, this is not just ‘tokenization’, which most gateways support, but rather a specific set of new card acceptance rules. Everyone in the payment ecosystem has some responsibility to make changes for compliance- issuer, acquirer, merchant and payment gateway. No one can ‘automatically’ get merchants compliant with new UCOF rules; if any vendor says they have, call 3Dmerchant to review why it’s not.
  2. If the initial authorization and final settlement amount are not the same, what happens? This is a common scenario for distributors, manufacturing and ecommerce, but if there’s a mismatch, an or an open authorization is not reversed, merchants pay an expensive processing penalty fees. For example, MasterCard Data Rate 1 might appear on merchant statements for interchange rate qualification, which is nearly 100 basis points higher than if settled optimally.
  3. Is there any difference between the type transaction transmitted to the acquirer when a customer self-pays an invoice such as through a payment portal vs when an employee key enters the cardholder data? The answer must be yes. One is submitted as a phone order (MOTO) and one is submitted as an ecommerce order.
  4. BONUS: What’s the process for renewing an expired authorization? Preauthorizations are common in manufacturing and ecommerce. While an expired authorization is usually approved for final settlement within 30 days, there are financial penalties and risk associated with using expired authorizations. Merchants should automate this process as much as possible, removing decisions from employees, which is always fraught with risk.
  5. BONUS 2: Can I process EMV chip transactions with level 3 processing in F&O? Due to October 2019 licensing changes, some merchants may find it more profitable to skip the retail license add-on.

Call Christine Speedy, PCI Council QIR certified, for all your Microsoft Dynamics AX and D365 payment processing needs from ACH to credit cards and more. Get a new or keep existing merchant account at 954-942-0483, 9-5 ET.

Visa Prevents Approximately $25 Billion in Fraud Using Artificial Intelligence

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Since pioneering AI in payments, continuous evolution of the technology in Visa Advanced Authorization helps drive commerce and consumer confidence

SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) today announced new analysis showing Visa Advanced Authorization (VAA) using artificial intelligence (AI) helped financial institutions prevent an estimated $25 billion in annual fraud—making the global payment ecosystem safer for retailers and consumers.i VAA is a comprehensive risk management tool that monitors and evaluates transaction authorizations on the Visa global payment network, VisaNet, in real time to help financial institutions promptly identify and respond to emerging fraud patterns and trends. Visa processed more than 127 billion transactions between merchants and financial institutions on VisaNet last year, and employed AI to analyze 100 percent of the transactions—each in about one millisecond—so financial institutions can approve legitimate purchases while quickly identifying and preventing fraudulent transactions.

“One of the toughest challenges in payments is separating good transactions made by account holders from bad ones attempted by fraudsters without adding friction to the process,” said Melissa McSherry, senior vice president and global head of Data, Risk and Identity Products and Solutions, Visa. “Visa was the first payment network to apply neural network-based AI in 1993 to analyze the riskiness of transactions in real time, and the impact on fraud was immediate. By striking the right balance between human expertise and technology innovation, we continue to evolve our capabilities as new AI breakthroughs expand the realm of what’s possible.”

For financial institutions, friction in the payment process can lead to the abandonment of a payment card. A study by Javelin Strategy & Research revealed more than half of cardholders affected by false declines (51 percent) used a secondary payment card to complete the purchase at the same merchant, which can push a competitor’s card to the top of wallet.ii However, removing friction cannot come at the expense of identifying and preventing fraud. As a survey by the National Retail Federation and Forrester discovered, the top payment-related challenge faced by retailers is fraud, cited by 55 percent of those surveyed.

Visa Advanced Authorization is a layer of fraud prevention that can help drive down risk and fraud for financial institutions and retailers, and help reduce friction due to false declines for payment account holders. More than 8,000 financial institutions in 129 countries use Visa Advanced Authorization.

Preventing fraud near the speed of light

Visa pioneered using neural networks modeled after the human brain to power its AI platform to identify possible fraud. This delivers faster and deeper insights through previously unknown correlations. Delivered through Visa Advanced Authorization, retailers and financial institutions benefit from:
• Machine Learning models used for real-time examination of each transaction for indicators of fraud—looking at activities, patterns and more than 500 risk attributes—all in about one millisecond.
• Risk scoring, which Visa shares with the account holder’s financial institution, where the decision is made to either approve or decline the transaction, or flag the transactions for follow up with the account holder.
• The ability to identify good transactions even when made by new or infrequent shoppers, reducing the likelihood of false declines.
• Real-time authorization using integrated, global predictive analytics to identify and prevent fraud.
Visa has kept global fraud rates at historic lows—less than 0.1 percent—through a multi-layered approach of investing in human intelligence and technology like A.I.; empowering consumers and clients with tools, resources and control to manage risk; and setting governance processes to help businesses and regulators stay nimble.iv
“Consumers identified Visa as the most trusted company to provide financial services or payments among all payment networks and we believe it is due to Visa’s unrelenting focus on eliminating fraud and protecting the payment ecosystem,” said McSherry.v

Additional Risk Solutions Using AI
Visa champions security every day to protect the payment ecosystem and offers a portfolio of risk products and services that can help consumers, merchants and financial institutions prevent fraud. This includes Visa Risk Manager (VRM), Visa Consumer Authentication Services (VCAS) and CyberSource Decision Manager (DM), among others. For more information about Visa’s Risk solution portfolio, visit Visa Security.

Additional Resources

About Visa Inc.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) is the world’s leader in digital payments. Our mission is to connect the world through the most innovative, reliable and secure payment network – enabling individuals, businesses and economies to thrive. Our advanced global processing network, VisaNet, provides secure and reliable payments around the world, and is capable of handling more than 65,000 transaction messages a second. The company’s relentless focus on innovation is a catalyst for the rapid growth of digital commerce on any device for everyone, everywhere. As the world moves from analog to digital, Visa is applying our brand, products, people, network and scale to reshape the future of commerce. For more information, visit About Visa,visa.com/blog and @VisaNews.

i For the 12 months ended April 30, 2019.

ii “Addressing the Threat of False Positive Declines” by Kyle Marchini and Al Pascual, Javelin Strategy & Research, October 17, 2018.

iii “The State of Retail Payments Report – Outlook for 2019” by Brendan Miller, principal analyst, Forrester, November 2018.

iv Visa Global Fraud Data, Visa Inc., April 2019.

v “Omnichannel and Branch: The Current U.S. Consumer Banking Environment,” by Peter Reville, Director of Primary Data, Mercator Advisory Group, March 2019.

Source: Visa Inc.