Have you ever heard of 3D Secure Processing?  What about SSL Credit Card Processing?

3D Secure Processing stands for Three Domain Model processing.  This refers to payments being split up into three different domains:

*  The Issuer Domain – this domain deals with the mechanisms of the card issuer and the cardholder

*  The Acquirer Domain – this domain deals with the merchants.

*  The Interoperability Domain – deals with the functions of the Issuer and Acquirer Domains.

This model is used for secure payment processing systems.  This credit card processing method also helps to better the performance of transactions online.  When using this processing method, customers begin to trust you more, and your business starts to increase.  During this process, when customers make a purchase, the system will be able to tell whether or not the transaction is legitimate or fraudulent. 

The performance of transactions should be impacted in a positive way as to benefit the merchants as well as the customers.  Both VISA and MasterCard have used the 3D Secure Payment Processing Program for branding purposes.  With VISA, it is called “Verified by VISA,” the brand for MasterCard is, “SecureCode”.

For both. the branding of VISA and MasterCard brands, merchants can participate if they wish.  However, if the merchant has a lot of chargeback’s on their account, then their participation is limited. 

This credit card processing program was created to keep credit card transactions flowing and reduce or eliminate the number of fraudulent accounts.

Any merchant website should be branded with an SSL certificate.  When a customer sees this on a merchant’s website, they’ll know that the website is legitimate and their data is secure.  SSL is an acronym for Secure Socket Layer.  SSL lets users on the internet get involved with websites that are deemed secure.  One example of such a website is a bank.  It is imperative that they have this certificate on their website because there is so much sensitive information regarding customer bank accounts. 

The SSL certificate lets people know that the data that goes between the web server and a merchant’s browser is safe and cannot be leaked out or hacked.  Having an SSL certificate on a merchant’s website can:

*  Get customers from all over the world.

*  Influence customer’s confidence in the merchant’s website.

*  Customers will feel a sense of security knowing that their sensitive information is safe.

*  Customers will have that sense of trust that merchants are looking out for them.

On the other hand, if a website does not have an SSL certificate, there may be some question marks.  Their sensitive credit card information might not be as secure as customers thought.  Hackers may take advantage of the oversight and invade the website.  Customers may decide to go somewhere else because of the breach of security.

It’s very important that merchants keep their customers happy and their credit card processing secure by providing having a SSL certificate.  There’s nothing worse than having a website and the customer’s information has been compromised.  When you go that extra mile to put those measures in place, your customers will thank you for it.

For most merchants, using their credit card merchant account has not only helped their business grow, but it has been the mainstay of their cash flow. For online merchants, not being able to accept credit cards is not an option. Another great option for merchants to electronically process consumer transactions is through ACH.

ACH is Automatic Clearing House and basically an electronic wire transfer system and the transactions are settled in much the same way that traditional paper check transactions are; meaning that the bank divides the batch submissions by the originator bank and sends them off to clear, and wit for the respective deposits. Unlike paper checks, ACH transactions are usually high dollar amounts and are popular with international merchants selling products or services to clients abroad. This usually works out well because of the time and risk involved with mailing funds. Internet merchants are believed to be particularly savvy when it comes to funds acceptance diversification. ACH has been around since the early 1970’s and has always been a risk for businesses to perform due to theft and fraud. Unfortunately criminals will always find a way into the most elaborate and secure funds transfer systems; however, this cannot stop merchants from looking forward to add ACH to their stable of acceptance venues.

When ACH was born, the US Federal Reserve offered help by way of offering electronics and computer systems to aid banking institutions deal with, organize and settle ACH transactions. In 1974 NACHA, which is the National Automatic Clearing House Association, to help establish rules and guidelines as well as regulate certain portions of the ACH industry. Today they operate and maintain their website which is www.nacha.org which offers news, information, resource links and statistics for merchants that are interested in ACH. Currently ACH transactions increase an average of about 15% each year, with a 13.4% volume increase in 2007. Due to the internet revolution, ACH has grown steadily and seems to show no slowdown in sight for the near future; however it is unclear today what the effects of a slow economy or recession will have on these transactions. It is possible that ACH transactions may spike in a slow economy because of the relative low cost of a per transaction fee, no discount rate and no chargeback risk. As with any avenue in business, industry professionals work to make their products and services more mainstream and a questionable economy just may be the way to accomplish that.

Setting up an ACH account is fairly simple. Many merchant service providers that set up and assist in the maintenance of merchant credit card accounts offer ACH set up services. This is great for one stop shoppers; however there are companies that specialize in ACH set up and servicing specifically ACH customers. The application process is very similar to credit card acceptance applications and there is usually a set up fee, monthly fee and transaction fee, which is the same for credit card accounts. A great money savings for merchants is that there is no discount rate involved. This means that there is no percentage of each dollar being processed taken out for the bank or processor. Transaction fees vary, but usually fall between $.25 and $1.00 per transaction. This can mean real dollars saved for certain industries, but it would be a hard sell for many merchants that benefit from the ease of credit cards and allot for those expenses. While it may not happen tomorrow, ACH is here to stay and enjoys steady growth in a fickle and ever changing marketplace. If you are interested in information on ACH accounts, checking with your merchant service provider is not a bad place to start.

For more information on credit card processing and check processing please visit http://www.stradafee.com.