Digital wallets are becoming a more popular way for to pay for goods and services. With choices like Apple Pay, Google Wallet, the upcoming Samsung Pay, and even PayPal, there are plenty of options for customers no matter what kind of smartphone or electronic device they use.
Digital wallets (like Apple Pay) are a way to pay for goods and services using your compatible smartphone or smartwatch instead of pulling out a physical credit card.
For most businesses, the compliance date was October 1st, 2015. (Pay at the pump gas stations have until 2020 to comply.) If you’re holding out on upgrading to EMV chip card equipment, here’s what you need to know. What is EMV? Traditional Credit Cards vs. EMV Cards Fraud Reduction with EMV EMV Liability Shift Becoming…
By now, most businesses are aware of EMV or chip cards, the new technology in credit card processing. The major credit card companies announced requirements for processors and businesses to accept these chip cards that have been shown to reduce fraud in card-present environments.
Several months ago American Express introduced OptBlue, which is a new pricing structure that will replace the company’s current One Point pricing for most businesses. OptBlue’s pricing functions similarly to that of Visa and MasterCard’s interchange in that processors pay “wholesale” rates to American Express and apply their markup through a cost-plus or tiered pricing model.
American Express’s OptBlue program provides the possibility of lower fees for informed merchants.
Interchange plus pricing does not guarantee competitive credit card processing fees. It’s just as easy for a processor to overcharge a business using interchange plus pricing as it is with other pricing models, such as tiered.
As more information becomes available about credit card processing and more people with superficial knowledge write about the topic, interchange plus is often touted as the be-all end-all to opaque billing and high credit card processing charges. This is a dangerously expensive misconception.
Allowing your current credit card processor to match a more competitive offer may sound like a good idea, but it’s a losing proposition that will cost time and money.
I get it. It’s easier to have your current credit card processor match lower pricing than it is to go through the application and set up an account with a new processor. But, like it or not, there’s no way to win the credit card processing match game, which is why no one ever does.
You’re setting yourself up for an expensive failure by shopping for the “best credit card processing rates.”
Credit card processing rates are a decoy that distracts from the variables that really impact cost. The biggest mistake you can make when shopping credit card processing services is to ask a bunch of processors the fateful question, “What’s your rate?”
Despite repeated requests to correct its content, the SBA has chosen to mislead small businesses. On September 10, 2013 the SBA posted an article titled The Best Credit Card Processing For Small Business Owners, written by guest blogger and affiliate marketer Marco Carbajo. In the article, Marco Carbajo makes numerous false statements in an attempt…
A dangerously erroneous article recently posted by the Small Business Administration is misleading small businesses, and the SBA has carelessly ignored repeated calls to have the article removed or corrected.
Before you get gouged by a so-called “five star” processor, be sure you know the motivation of the reviewer, what or whom the review is targeting, and how credit card processing fees actually work. What’s the motivation for the reviewer? Is the review targeting the appropriate company? Pricing and Terms are Set on Per-Business Basis…
Think twice before staking your business’s credit card processing on speculative processor reviews. Most credit card processor reviews aren’t worth the virtual paper they’re printed on.
Use the secrets that credit card processors don't want you to know to drastically lower your credit card processing fees.
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