L3 Payments
Billing: Winds of Change
The European shows were excellent. I had the pleasure of speaking with businesses from all over the world, with a heavy European concentration. It was great to hear other people’s perspectives on the business in general, and their specific interests as they relate to the current environment in particular.
Online Billing - Due Diligence
Web traffic is an integral part of the e-commerce merchant’s customer acquisition strategy. So much so, in fact, that typically anyone can sign up as an affiliate online and begin sending traffic to their new partner very quickly. Affiliates are so vital to merchants that there are: job positions for Affiliate Managers; companies created to simply manage the affiliate network for their content sites; and numerous software companies whose purpose is to track affiliate traffic and to pay them properly for the business they have provided.
When the Best Defense Is a Good Offense
A reality today is that consumers will chargeback transactions they knowingly authorized. Some experts call this “Friendly Fraud” others call it “Liar Buyer”; either way it is happening everyday. In a Card Not Present business the question is, “What, if anything, should a merchant do about a chargeback?” Is this something the merchant should dispute or is it something the merchant should simply accept as the cost of doing business?
Chargebacks: Hooray for Mastercard
Master-Card has recently published a revision of its standards for the Excessive Chargeback Program that will go into effect on Aug. 15. In plain English, that means that the chargeback ratios at which your MasterCard account is evaluated at have been modified.
Mitigating Chargebacks
In a world where the measure of a merchant’s worthiness for credit card processing is based on the rate at which transactions are returned by the issuing banks, it is worth a refresher on ways to mitigate chargebacks.
Cash for Online Purchases
I had the privilege of attending the NACHA Electronic Check Council meeting in Phoenix recently. The two-day meeting provided the attendees with insight into the NACHA activities, debit card models and Generation Y payment habits.
Regulators Form Processor Task Force
On Oct. 27 at the Electric Transaction Authority’s Compliance Day in Chicago, a Federal Trade Commission official told attendees that the government has formed a task force to monitor third-party payment-services providers. The stated goal is to prevent fraudulent merchants from obtaining merchant accounts and to shut down such merchants as quickly as possible if they defraud consumers.
Are You Unfair or Deceptive?
As I mentioned last month, there is a new surge of activity within the banking industry in the name of UDAP. This surge of activity shows that the bank regulators have also been tasked with not only evaluating whether the bank they are examining is being neither unfair nor deceptive when providing services to their consumers, but these examiners have been mandated with protecting all consumers.
The Excited States of America
The above title is extremely fitting today in banking. The endless closing down of banks, the continued shutting down of business checking accounts for adult-type merchants and the unrelenting pressure for banks not to process for adult-type merchants demonstrates the applicability of this statement.
Merchant Accounts in Other Countries
The concept of processing credit card transactions through merchant accounts in countries where the merchant has no physical presence is a topic that comes to my attention at least weekly. Therefore, for the benefit of those who need a refresher and for those whom it is a brand new concept, here is a high-level look.
Foreign Banks and Merchant Accounts
You might wonder why you can’t simply open a Merchant Account in whatever country you like. In a nutshell, it’s because there is a concept of “cross border acquiring” that endeavors to protect all the parties in the credit card processing transaction.
Processor Points: Pretty Woman
It’s that age old problem wherein people judge the book by its cover.
Merchants to Merchant Account Providers
Stop what you are doing and go to Google, type in “adult merchant account” and see what you get. You will be served up oodles of sites telling you they offer adult merchant accounts and are experts in it! Seriously, how many of those names do you even recognize?
Company Profile: L3 Payments
Any way you cut it, having an adult business is risky business. If it’s not concern over record keeping, it’s worrying about copyright infringement or how to keep a company afloat in times when nearly every type of porn is free for the taking.
New Banks in Adult? Not!
With traditional banking fees being terminated, debit fees being threatened and interest rates being practically non-existent, banks are looking to increase revenues to keep their shareholders happy.
ACH by the Numbers
Last month, I shared with you reasons why a merchant would want to consider offering ACH as a payment option but I didn’t give you any specific details about ACH. This month, I selected eight number-based facts to give you some understanding of the breadth of ACH processing and the organization that is responsible for its continued well being.
News from NACHA
It is comforting to know that the people responsible for the processing of trillions of dollars annually in the U.S. are so conscientious.
Slice of American Pie
It’s scandalous As a foreign professional who was relocated to the U.S. by an American-owned company, I opened a bank account with no problem but a credit card from that same financial institution was another concern for the bank altogether.
L3 Payments Team to Attend The Phoenix Forum
L3 Payments’ executive team will be participating in next week’s Phoenix Forum to meet with industry colleagues and Internet entrepreneurs.
L3 Payments Hires Eric Munz as Vice President of Sales and Marketing
L3 Payments LLC, a provider of merchant processing solutions and consulting services, has tapped Eric Munz as vice president of sales and marketing.