Payment processing can be confusing. Couple that with the rapidly changing environment and a number of new innovations and you may be left wondering: What exactly does that word mean? Let’s look at 10 terms to help you spring into better payments. We’ll focus on some of the basics, essential to the core of credit card processing, and we will also look at some new terms that you are likely to be hearing a lot more of in the future. Is there a word you’re unsure about and it’s not on the list? Leave a comment and we’ll get back [...]
Tagged as:
Credit card,
Financial Services,
Merchant Services,
Mobile payment,
Payment
It is always a good exercise to take a look back and see what you were talking about this time last year. Is the topic still relevant? Did any predictions you make come true? What has changed since then? Yesterday, I took a look back on the Litle Blog and our headline on April 18, 2011 was “Micro-chip Embedded Credit Cards Coming to America at Long Last.” We were reporting on an article from Fast Company where Wells Fargo announced it would be testing EMV chip cards with a group of 15,000 frequent-traveling customers. And the San Francisco Chronicle reported that [...]
We have exciting new client news to share! Leading multichannel electronic retailer ShopNBC has joined the Litle merchant family. We will be working with ShopNBC on a range of payments management and intelligence solutions across their payment processing operations. We’re particularly thankful to our ShopNBC colleagues Joan Radtke and Dawn Zaremba, and our Litle colleagues Jenn Munson and Lisa Tennant, for helping bringing this announcement to life. LOWELL, Mass. and EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn., April 12, 2012 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — ShopNBC, a multichannel electronic retailer, and Litle & Co., a leading payment processing company for consumer-direct brands, today announced ShopNBC’s [...]
Tagged as:
Gilt Groupe,
Guthy-Renker,
Litle,
Litle & Co,
Payment processor,
ShopNBC
If you’ve been in the business of accepting credit and debit cards for some time now, you are likely aware that the card brands regularly implement fee changes on a bi-annual basis. Your processor should communicate these changes as they happen so you are well prepared when they go into effect. With the next set of fee changes set to happen this week I wanted to share some insight and background on the card brand network enhancements. Card brand fee changes are scheduled to take place in April and October. What do merchants need to be aware of? April and [...]
Tagged as:
American Express,
Credit card,
Debit card,
Discover Card,
MasterCard,
Merchant,
Visa
We’ve been focusing on the topic of interchange all week in our “Eye” on Interchange series. We wanted to take today’s Fundamental Friday’s post to remain focused on the increasingly complex topic. So, we’ve decided to re-run our Interchange post from Fundamental Fridays a few weeks ago. Today, we’ll look at interchange, assessments, and fee structures to give you a comprehensive look at your credit card processing fees. We hope you enjoyed this week’s series. Do you have any interchange questions left unanswered? If so, post them in the comments section! Interchange Interchange is a fee, mandated by Visa [...]
Tagged as:
Credit card,
Fundamental Fridays,
Interchange fee,
MasterCard,
Merchant,
Payment processor,
Visa
Our focus this week is all about interchange in the week long series An “Eye” on Interchange. Today, we are looking ahead at what the future might hold. I had another opportunity to sit down with Payments Evangelist Tom Pouliot and I wanted to ask him about the increasing complexities that make up interchange and what merchants can expect moving forward. I hope this conversation offers you more insight into the complex interchange world and gives you a better understanding of your interchange costs. Just joining us? Here is what you missed, so far. We kicked off the series with [...]
Tagged as:
Credit card,
Eye on Interchange,
Interchange,
Interchange fee,
Lawyer,
MasterCard,
Merchant,
Tom Pouliot
In 2011, the merchant community was abuzz about the Durbin Amendment, a tiny piece of Dodd-Frank that amended the Electronic Funds Transfer Act to require that debit interchange fees be “reasonable and proportional” to the cost incurred by an issuing bank. Now that we’ve seen Durbin in action (it’s actually called “Reg II,” though few refer to it that way) the jury is still out on whether it’s a good thing for everyone. These mixed results plus growing momentum in a seven-year-old class action lawsuit against Visa, MasterCard, and several of the country’s largest banks, indicate the interchange fight is [...]
Tagged as:
Durbin,
Durbin Amendment,
Electronic Fund Transfer Act,
Eye on Interchange,
Fed,
Federal Reserve System,
Interchange fee,
MasterCard,
National Retail Federation,
Visa
It’s that time of the week again. We are getting back to the basics of payment processing with our Fundamental Fridays series. We’ve already discussed interchange, managing chargebacks, and address verification service. Today, we will continue the discussion with card security checks. To help reduce fraud for card not present transactions, the major credit card companies implemented authentication systems to ascertain if the credit card used in a transaction is actually in the possession of the owner. Knowledge of the card security value — known as CVV2, CVC2, CMID, and CID by Visa, MasterCard, Discover and American Express, respectively — [...]
We’ve talked a lot about how merchants have been affected by the changes that came to life as a result of last year’s Durbin Amendment. But, what about the rest of the payments ecosystem — what has Durbin meant for it? Let’s talk today about how Durbin has affected more than just interchange. The Federal Reserve’s Reg. II ruling was put in place to limit the amount that could be charged in interchange on debit card purchases. The ruling capped debit card fees at $0.21 plus 5 basis points. If you’ve followed the Durbin Amendment through the legislative process you [...]
Tagged as:
Durbin Amendment,
National Retail Federation,
Payment Processing,
Wall Street
We’ve been taking Friday’s to get back to the basics of some important topics of payment processing. We’ve already delved into how merchants can avoid chargebacks, and provided a breakdown of interchange fee structures. Today, we will discuss address verification service (AVS), an automated fraud prevention service designed to reduce the risk associated with card-not-present transactions. AVS helps to minimize fraudulent transactions by verifying the cardholder’s billing address with the card issuer. The merchant must initiate the AVS check by providing the proper data in each transaction. Verification results help the merchant decide whether to accept a particular order or [...]
Tagged as:
Address Verification System,
American Express,
AVS,
Credit card,
Fundamental Fridays,
Interchange fee,
MasterCard,
Merchant,
Payment processor
