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Merchant Bank Accounts & Credit card
processing – We help your Business Grow
Most businesses today aim to provide
their customers with card payment
options. They open Merchant Bank
Accounts for the purpose and enjoy
increased sales. Credit card processing
is becoming easy and safe owing to the
trustworthy payment gateways coming up.
Credit card and debit/ATM card payment
is fast becoming a sizeable chunk of the
way consumers spend. From restaurants to
shopping malls, from telephone bill
payments to air ticket bookings – the
small plastic rectangle takes care of it
all. The customer of today is too smart
to be hassled by a thick wad of cash in
his back pocket. Visa, Mastercard and
American Express are global credit cards
that are becoming very popular amongst
consumers.
For the consumer end, the procedure of
credit card payment is as simple as the
swiping of the card and the payment of
the amount whenever the bill comes.
However, for the businessperson to be
able to accept credit card payments, it
takes a more complex protocol.
For such business people, it is
necessary to open a Merchant Bank
Account. By virtue of a merchant bank
account, any businessman is provided
with a line of credit and becomes a
credit card payment acceptor. A line of
credit may take several forms such as
cash credit, overdraft, demand loan,
export packing credit, term loan,
discounting or purchase of commercial
bills. It is a formal contract between
the bank and the merchant. These
merchant bank accounts are either
provided to the tradesmen directly by
the bank or by specialized and
registered agents. These accounts are
available at a small fee that may be
paid periodically or on a percentage
basis.
A credit card terminal is another
necessity that a tradesman would require
to be capable of accepting non-cash
payments. This is a small machine that
contains a slot where the cash card is
swiped and other card details entered,
if needed. This machine is typically
connected both to electric power supply
and to a telephone line.
Sometimes, additional data is provided
by the businessperson so as to reduce
the surcharges he pays to the merchant
bank account provider. This is called
‘level 2’ or ‘level 3’ processing and
the type of data included in this higher
level processing include purchase order
number, tax amount, customer code,
merchant minority code, merchant state
code, etc.
Normal consumer-tradesman transactions
are forbidden from level 3 processing –
this is confined to corporate to
corporate and corporate to government
type dealings. Data provided during
level 3 processing include – Item
Product Code, Item Description, Item
unit of measure, Item quantity and Item
Discount indicator to name a few. Level
3 data needs additional software to
transmit the extra date.
Once the credit card details have been
entered in the credit card terminal, the
relevant information is passed on to a
web server and a payment gateway through
a 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
Internet Protocol (IP) connection. The
SSL encrypts the data in order to
protect it from computer hackers.
The payment gateway is responsible for
verifying the data entered. If verified,
a receipt is mailed to the customer and
to the merchant web server. The amount
is then debited from the customer’s
account and placed in the merchant bank
account of the businessperson. |
