We’ve been talking about payments intelligence, the ability to capture all that payments transactions tell us about the people behind the card swipes, for some time now. Last fall my colleague shared, “The time and importance of knowing one’s consumer has never been so great,” and he couldn’t have been more right. Analytics are no longer an option, they are business critical. Customers are after more targeted and more relevant experiences from brands. If you are unable to communicate with them in a highly targeted fashion you will certainly miss opportunities. By inserting payments intelligence into the mix you can truly [...]
Last week we continued our Fundamental Friday’s series breaking down the payment processing costs for small-to-medium size businesses in the card-not-present environment. Today, let’s look at the players involved and the process that occurs in order for you to get paid. MasterCard and Visa are at the center of the transaction process, maintaining the flow of funds between issuers and acquirers. Let’s define issuer and acquirer and their roles in processing payments. Issuer: Any financial institution, bank, credit union, or company that issues plastic cards to cardholders. The issuer is responsible for the cardholder account program which encompasses nearly all aspects [...]
Tagged as:
Acquirer,
Credit card,
Interchange fee,
Issuing bank,
MasterCard,
Payment processor,
SMBs,
Visa
I recently penned an article, ““Big Data? The Big Deal Behind Payments Intelligence,” featured in Electronic Retailer Magazine and wanted to extend the conversation around Big Data and payments intelligence. We’re hearing about Big Data everywhere – referring to the vast trove of unstructured information collected online. But, the truth is, the even bigger “big deal” lies in the increasing value businesses are placing on knowledge of their customers. Analytics are no longer an option, they are business critical. But, where does the most un-mined, most valuable data available today come from? It’s found in your customer payments coming through the complexities [...]
Subscription based merchants face unique opportunities and challenges in the card-not-present environment. Subscriptions used to be just for newspapers and magazines, but not anymore. Changing consumer habits are moving more traditional merchants to adopt subscription based business models. But what does it take to succeed in this world? We’ve teamed up with our partner Zuora, who offers a subscription commerce and billing platform, to bring you a free white paper: “The Definitive Guide to Subscription Commerce.” Requirements of subscription commerce include everything from product and pricing strategy, to customer subscription management and subscription billing and payments. According to Zuora, [...]
Tagged as:
Address Verification System,
Billing,
Business,
Card not present transaction,
Merchant,
Subscription business model,
Zuora
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
Last week, on the heels of MRC we continued the security and risk discussion with a Fundamental Friday’s post on the PCI Data Security Standard. This week, let’s take a look at new, emerging technologies that when combined with other PCI approaches and standards significantly bolster data security while lowering costs. The cost of protecting yourself Protecting yourself against a data breach is an expensive endeavor. Merchants encounter direct expenses for both compliance and liability. According to Gartner Research, Level 2 Merchants (those processing between 1 and 6MM Visa or MasterCard transactions per year) can expect to pay $1.1 MM to become [...]
It has been six months since the Durbin Amendment came into effect and we’re still talking about the implications it is having on our industry. In fact, we haven’t stopped talking about it since October of last year. I thought now would be a good time to revisit some of our past blog posts on this topic. Some of the reads will be a good refresher on exactly what the Durbin Amendment entails while others are thought provoking pieces that look at the industry as a whole and the effects of Durbin to date. The Fed Speaks – Durbin + [...]
Tagged as:
Debit card,
Durbin,
Durbin Amendment,
Merchant
In lieu of Merchant Risk Council’s annual ecommerce payments and risk conference in Las Vegas we wanted to take this Friday to continue the risk discussion and focus on the PCI Data Security Standard. Earlier this week we talked about how tokenization technology can help keep your data secure. Today, let’s talk more in-depth about what the PCI data security standards entail. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, commonly known as “PCI-DSS” or “PCI” for short, is a standard across the major global card brands Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, and JCB to address cardholder account security. PCI was [...]
Tagged as:
American Express,
MasterCard,
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard,
Visa
