Merchant Services News

Yesterday, AIB Merchant Services announced that they will be launching their 1st contactless payment terminal.  This will be part of the next generation of tap and go payment checkout systems, competing with merchant equipment the likes of the Vivopay 4000.  Many industry pundits are predicting that in the future chips will be placed within people’s smart phones making the phone a tap and go payment device, a mobile wallet, a phone, and small PPC all wrapped up into one. AIB is just one of the companies tapping into the growing merchant services processing tap and go trend.

Following in the footsteps of the daily deals site Groupon, Mastercard has announced that they are launcing their own daily deals offering.  Yet, only their merchants who are offering merchant service through MasterCard will be allowed to advertise within their new daily deals offering.

This is smart.  Not only can they make income by offering geo-targeted daily deal offerings yet they can make more income by pushing for wider acceptance of MasterCard.

On April 10, 2012, Encore Payment Systems released a news release stating that they now have credit card security for small business.  When reading this at first I was wondering why that had not offered this sooner.  This is merchant services processing 101.

Yet, upon reading further in the press release I began to understand where they were really coming from.  What they are actually offering is the ability to audit your company’s credit card processing setup to make sure that you are PCI complaint.  This is a good and worthy service.

Choice Merchant Services offers this as part of all North AmericanBanard merchant service deals for free.  Yet Encore Payment Systems takes it a step further by offering a $10,000 fine reinbursement guarantee:

The press release states:

Unfortunately, small business owners don’t always receive the vital facts when it comes to Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliance. PCI DSS is an organization established to ensure that all companies that process, store or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. PCI Compliance is a multifaceted issue affecting great amounts of people in large and small businesses alike which is why Encore Payment Systems is now offering their merchants to become PCI DSS compliant.

Encore’s compliance team helps merchants to become compliant, scans computers for any data vulnerabilities and will cover small businesses who have completed the compliance process with up to $10,000 in fine reimbursements from a security breach event.

As you may be aware, Global Payments has acknowledged that they have incurred an unauthorized access into their system.

North American Bancard wants you to know Global Payments confirmed with us that no merchant or ISO data were compromised as a result of the breach. Global Payments believes that less than 1,500,000 card numbers may have been affected.  Their investigation to date has revealed only Track 2 card data may have been stolen, but cardholder names, addresses and social security numbers were not obtained by the criminals. The company believes that this incident is contained.

“It is reassuring that our security processes detected an intrusion.  It is crucial to understand that this incident does not involve our merchants or their relationships with their customers,” said Chairman and CEO Paul R. Garcia of Global Payments Inc.

The mobile payment start up has shaken things up again with Pay with Square.

Here’s how Pay with Square works:

1. Consumers will download the Square app and register.  This will link their payment card to it.

2. They then search Square’s directory of merchants and find a store or restaurant they are interested in.

3. The customer them selects the merchant plan to shop at, they take picture of themselves and load it into the App.  They can then open  “tab” that that will enable them to pay with their name.

4.  Once at the merchant store location the consumer will, without having to show the GPS enabled smart phone is is carrying can direct the merchant to put the purchase on their Square tab.

5. The customer’s name and photo then automatically appear on the merchant’s register.

6. Next the merchant confirms the consumer’s identity and the product purchased and it is charged to the accont tied to the customer’s Square mobile wallet.

This is going to shake up the mobile merchant services industry for sure!

Wireless Merchant Services is continuing to evolve at the fastest pace of any period in merchant services history.

On March 26th, ABC News broke a news story about how PayPal is breaking into the mobile merchant services industry with PayPal Here. PayPal Here empowers small merchants and independent businesses to accept credit cards on their phones – anywhere they can get a wireless signal.

“The mobile phone has revolutionized the way we shop,” PayPal’s director of communications Anuj Nayar told ABC News. “If you are making a purchase from your mobile phone in store, what sort of purchase is that? Is it an online purchase? The reality is it is all about multichannel retail.”

The solution is built around a small triangle-shaped piece of hardware, that plugs right into the iPhone’s headphone jack. The seller can swipe a credit card right along the top of the hardware, and then process the transaction in a wireless manner – fully encrypted – through PayPal.

The cost of this is pretty high compared to traditional mobile merchant services solutions.  The merchant is required to pay PayPal a flat rate of 2.7% of every transaction.  This is quite high compared to rates averaging abouut 2.25% elsewhere.

PAYware Connect from VeriFone announced on March 19, 2012 that its processing volume has now exceed $10 billion dollars.  That makes VeriFone’s PAYware Connect the largest payment processor for mobile payments – even exceeding the much lauded Square.

The system is easy to use and promises simple PCI compliance which is a necessity in today’s merchant services world.  Some may be surprised by the success of VeriFone’s PAYware connect – yet in reality this success is no surprise.  VeriFone has been making industry leading merchant equipment for years such as the top selling Verifone VX670 and the Verifone VX570.

Merchant Services Will Never Be the Same After Google WalletJune 1^st Google launched  Google Wallet.    This promises to revolutionize the world of merchant services.  The entire world may eventually throw away credit cards and replace them with a simple chip that is implanted into devices like a Smart Phone.  People will be able to tap their phone or computer chip on a payment terminal and seconds later the transaction will be complete.

So if you are a retail business or even a doctor’s office you will soon want to accept merchant service payments through the Vivopay 4000.  This credit card processing terminal allows payments to be sent through tap and go technology.

Google Wallet also promises to change the world of eCommerce as well.  It will enable people to with the tap of their phone purchase something on a website through their Smart Phone and even their home PC.  It can also offer advertisers like Sub Way the chance to send coupons directly to people Smart phone, which can then be redeemed simply by tapping their phone to the payment terminal at check out.

The tracking this offers to companies and advertisers is amazing.  The time this will save at the checkout or purchasing something online through a Smart Phone will be cut down too.  All in all this is a great tool.

The question is what is next?  That can get a bit scary.  Let’s keep these chips inside Smart Phones and not put them anywhere else.  Let’s also setup Smart Phones that no one can unlock them without a passcode or a thumb print verification – otherwise Google just opened up the word to more opportunities for credit card fraud.

Like it or not – things like Google Wallet are here to stay!  They will change merchant services forever.