Written by Craig Peterson, Vice President of Business Development for TenderCard
The gift card industry continues to grow at very fast pace, more than doubling in less than 3 years. Gift cards have replaced the old paper gift certificate. Gift card companies are now creating programs that cater to the small to medium size [...]
From time to time I review the search terms and phrases that being people to this blog to get ideas for posts. Today one of the first search phrases was “are you allowed to have two merchant accounts?” So here is a quick answer to that question – yes.
We have many clients that [...]
Yesterday I saw the traffic of this blog triple and I had no idea why. I did a little research and I found out the Los Angles Times mentioned the term “straigh pass through” in a business focused column written by Karen E. Klein yesterday. You an go here to see the column [...]
I had planned to write this post several months ago but we have been so incredibly busy that I had to put this on the back burner. So finally, here is a summary of the key changes that occurred in October to Interchange from Visa, MasterCard:
Master Card
Change #1 – MasterCard will no longer require [...]
If you haven’t watched part one of of this two part series go here to watch the first video.
The theme of part two of this series is that there is much more than just price to pay attention to when shopping for a merchant account. Watch the video and take a look at my [...]
Watch this video to here a different poi of view on merchant account early termination penalties. Let us know what you think by sharing your thoughts in the comment section below.
Watch this video and read this post to learn what to look for and ask when you are shopping for a merchant account.
What watch out for:
Super low discount rates – the lower the advertised rate is the greater your effective rate typically will be.
Free terminals or gateways – in business nothing is free in the [...]
Watch this video to be warned about the dangers that lurk in many merchant account contracts. The focus of this lesson is on early termination fees and contract auto renewal. If you heed these words you can save yourself a lot of money and suffering.
A Processor is the company that actually routes an Authorization Request from a Point of Sale device (such as a Verifone credit card terminal) to Visa or Master Card, and then arranges for Fund Settlement to the merchant. Such processors are traditionally accessed via direct dial out modems connecting to their system.
-Processors need to have [...]
If you would like to lower your merchant account fees by switching to a “straight pass through” account go here, fill out the short form and we’ll have you saving money in no time.
If you would like us to analyze your current merchant account and show you how much a “straight pass through” merchant account [...]
By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
Before I get to the meat of the matter, let me finish what I began last week. It bugged me that I only knew what TJ Maxx was supposed to be fined, so I went and found out what they were fined. Rather than the roughly $100 per [...]
A Sponsoring Bank is a Chartered Bank or Savings & Loan that has obtained membership in Visa or Master Card in order to allow a Processor access to the Visa and Master Card networks (in order to process these types of transactions).
-Since only a Bank may join Visa or Master Card, many Processors make deals [...]
Credit card processing seems simple enough. However, there are lots of moving parts behind the scenes. Here is a simplified, step by step list that reveals the whole process:
Authorization
1. Your customer presents their credit card (or the card number, expiration date and security code) to you or your employee.
2. You swipe the card or key [...]
By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
For the remainder of this discussion, I’ll discuss interchange fees and then a little about the fees to the merchant account provider. The assessment fees paid to the associations, both being small and not negotiable, can wait for another day.
Interchange fees usually make up roughly 80% of the fees you [...]
By John Robinson, of Cocard Synergy
For the really short answer, check out Who Gets Your Merchant Account Fees?
Here’s the plain ‘ol short answer:
Originally these fees were created to cover the cost of processing for your customer’s bank (the “issuing bank ”), and to make small profit for the bank giving you your money (the “acquiring [...]
