Accepting payment via American Express has long been a challenge for merchants; it used to require working with Amex directly, and the card fees were greater than what you’d pay for Visa or Mastercard. However, thanks to the OptBlue program, since 2014 American Express has offered a viable way for small businesses to accept Amex […]
We’ve all done it–scrolled to the bottom of a user’s agreement and clicked I Agree or signed a paper contract without looking through the many pages of small print. We know it’s wrong, but we’re busy and the print is so small…and we are thankfully often protected by consumer protection laws that work quietly in […]
By now, you’ve certainly figured out that credit card processing isn’t free. Every credit or debit card transaction that your business accepts is going to cost you money. You probably also understand that your payment processor has to pay interchange fees to the bank that issued the customer’s card. In fact, interchange fees constitute the […]
I can hardly believe it’s been a decade since I started feeling inundated with comments about how mobile is the future of everything. And I do mean everything. However, there is one area where that is absolutely, 100% true: credit card processing and point of sale (POS) systems. A Juniper Research study predicts that by […]
As consumers, we all have a good understanding of the difference between a credit card and a debit card. For a credit card, we get a statement on a monthly basis, and we can pay off the entire balance or only a portion of the balance while paying interest on the rest. In other words, […]
If you’re a first-time small business owner, you might not be too familiar with the concept of PCI compliance. You might not even have ever heard of it before. It’s also entirely possible that your first introduction to the subject will come in the form of a “PCI compliance fee.” This is a fee that […]
It’s safe to say that merchant relations with credit card processing companies, card associations, and banks aren’t always friendly. Nor would you expect them to be, when merchants find themselves subject to all sorts of fees and limitations imposed by these organizations. Every so often, things reach a peak — for example, the massive class-action […]
So, you’re a first-time small business owner, and you want to be able to accept credit and debit cards from your customers. After all, you’re bound to get a lot more sales – and make more money — right? Well, this is generally true. However, credit card processing is also a mysterious and rather complex […]
Some credit card industry terms can seem innocuous or self-evident but are actually quite specific to how payment processing works. One such term is the merchant ID, which is often abbreviated as MID. It is also sometimes just called a merchant number. Not every merchant who accepts credit cards has an MID, but for those […]
If you’re a new business owner, you may not know very much about PCI compliance – or even what it is. It’s possible that your first introduction to the subject might be an unexpected fee for PCI compliance showing up on your monthly processing statement. Like it or not, you can expect that PCI compliance […]
