Credit Card Processing Blog Posts | Page 7

A particularly confusing and misunderstood fee is the monthly minimum. Rather than a direct fee, it’s the minimum amount in processing fees you’re required to pay your provider monthly. If your processing fees fall short of this minimum, you’re billed the difference; if not, there’s no extra charge.

When choosing an internet merchant account for your eCommerce business, you’ll need to understand how a merchant account interacts with the other elements necessary for selling online, such as payment gateways, payment processors, and shopping carts. Some services combine one or more of these elements, but it’s still important to distinguish these elements from one another.

Wondering about using a manual credit card machine? A credit card imprinter essentially uses a miniaturized version of printing press technology, capturing a copy of the credit card for you to process at a later date. Credit card imprinters let you take payments without internet, but it also means extra work.

If you’re excited about all of the benefits of recurring payments, you may be wondering about the next best step. If you already have a payment processor, make contact and see what already may be available to you and how to implement it easily. You likely also have the option to integrate a payment gateway if you have an existing site, and your current payment processor may have a list of available options for you.

The business of credit card processing is changing quickly. These days, only the old-line established processors have long contracts with ETFs that penalize you for ending a contract early. Newer processors with different business models can offer you better deals, and you can easily shop around and avoid contracts with ETFs.

Subscription pricing for merchant services is good for businesses with a higher processing volume, as those businesses can save big on markup costs and other credit card processing fees.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably looking to accept credit card payments on your phone or perhaps your tablet as well. So where do you start, and how do you decide which software/payment processor to choose? I’m here to help you figure out if mobile processing is right for you (spoiler alert, it probably is), and which features are the most important.

From a merchant’s standpoint, the difference between a credit and a debit card matters less than it does to the consumer, but the difference is still detectable because the transactions carry different costs. In fact, because a PIN pad is needed to initiate true debit charges, a merchant must buy a point of sale terminal with a PIN pad before true debit charges can be processed. For larger ticket items, a true debit charge can cost the merchant less to process than a credit charge or a credit path debit charge.

PCI compliance involves adhering to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) standard established by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC) to protect customer credit card information from cyber threats. This is a critical measure for preventing data breaches and ensuring customer trust.

Credit card surcharging has rapidly gained in popularity in recent years as court decisions, and legislative changes have gradually removed legal barriers to the practice. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has greatly accelerated this trend. Nonetheless, the question remains: Should you add a surcharge?