Payments
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Payments
American Express OptBlue: Understanding Processing Rates
August 18, 2014 • Phil Hinke
In “American Express OptBlue Program May Reduce Processing Cost,” my article last month, I explained American Express’s new program called OptBlue. This program should lower the American Express processing cost ...
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Payments
American Express OptBlue Program May Reduce Processing Cost
July 15, 2014 • Phil Hinke
American Express recently came out with a new program called OptBlue, where the final processing rates and fees paid by the merchant are set by the merchant account provider, not ...
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Payments
Merchants Discover Misleading Credit Card Processing Fees
June 16, 2014 • Phil Hinke
I want to thank Practical Ecommerce readers for their comments on my last article series, “How to Identify Dubious Credit Card Processing Fees.” I also appreciate readers sending me suspicious ...
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Payments
How to Identify Dubious Credit Card Processing Fees, Part 3
May 15, 2014 • Phil Hinke
Editor’s Note: This is “Part 3” of a three-part series. “Part 1” and “Part 2” we published previously. The purpose of this series is to educate merchants on questionable credit ...
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Payments
Should Ecommerce Merchants Accept Bitcoin?
May 7, 2014 • Marcia Kaplan
Bitcoin, the best known of several virtual payment currencies, has made inroads into mainstream commerce, including brick-and-mortar retailers. Some ecommerce sites are already accepting Bitcoin and if you are considering ...
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Payments
How to Identify Dubious Credit Card Processing Fees, Part 2
April 23, 2014 • Phil Hinke
Editor’s Note: This is “Part 2” of a three-part series. “Part 1” we published last month. The purpose of this series is to identify dubious fees that are commonly charged ...
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Payments
How to Identify Dubious Credit Card Processing Fees, Part 1
March 25, 2014 • Phil Hinke
Editor’s Note: This is “Part 1” of a three-part series. My article last month, “Credit Card Provider Sued for Deceptive Tactics,” generated questions from merchants regarding the suit, its impact, and the hidden,
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Payments
Credit Card Provider Sued for ‘Deceptive’ Tactics
February 13, 2014 • Phil Hinke
Heartland Payment Systems, one of the largest credit card providers in the U.S., stated in a press release that it has filed a federal lawsuit against Mercury Payment Systems, also ...
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Payments
$6 Billion Visa, MasterCard Settlement Final; How to Claim
January 15, 2014 • Phil Hinke
Last month, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York approved a settlement in a class-action lawsuit between merchants (as plaintiffs) and Visa, MasterCard and other defendants. The case ...
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Payments
3 Examples of Misleading Credit Card Processing Charges
December 20, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Editor’s Note: This is part two of a two-part series. The first installment, “Feds Eyeing Credit Card Processing Industry?,” we published last month. In “Feds Eyeing Credit Card Processing Industry?,” part ...
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Payments
10 Bitcoin-like Cryptocurrencies
December 16, 2013 • Sig Ueland
A “cryptocurrency” is a peer-to-peer, decentralized, digital currency. In 2009, Bitcoin became the first cryptocurrency to trade on third-party markets. Since then, many cryptocurrencies have been developed and are actively ...
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Payments
Feds Eyeing Credit Card Processing Industry?
November 14, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Editor’s Note: This is part one of a two-part series. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission included merchant account providers in two separate lawsuits it filed against telemarketers earlier this year. The ...
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Payments
Credit Card Processing: October 2013 Rate Changes, EMV Terminals
October 15, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Now is a good time for merchants to start noting how their provider is handling card company fee changes as well as any future rate and fee changes, especially if ...
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Payments
Avoid No-detail Credit Card Processing Statements
September 19, 2013 • Phil Hinke
I have addressed the importance of understanding credit card processing statements in previous articles. However, I’ve recently seen statements with little or minimal detail that make it virtually impossible to ...
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Payments
Latest Court Decision on Debit Card Processing Fees
August 22, 2013 • Phil Hinke
On July 31, 2013 U.S. District Judge Richard Leon sided with retailers and rejected the debit interchange rate cap set by Federal Reserve under the Durbin Amendment in 2011. The ...
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Payments
Beware Credit Card Processing Fees, Especially Refunds
July 17, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Merchants periodically send me their credit card processing agreements after they have negotiated new pricing with their existing provider or when changing providers. Usually, I find that the merchant has done a good job of negotiating rates and monthly fees. However, some of the peri...
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Payments
Credit Card Processing: Be Wary of Savings Analyses
June 18, 2013 • Phil Hinke
If you have been reading my articles, you know I do not believe business owners should give their credit card merchant statements to competing providers. Merchant statements disclose the pricing that competitors need to win over the account at the highest possible profit to them. Th...
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Payments
Blaming Credit Card Associations for Rate Changes
May 16, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Visa, MasterCard, and Discover generally change rates and terms in April and October. However, they can make changes at other times during the year, as will happen this year. Unfortunately, over the years, some providers have taken advantage of these changes by increasing their rates an...
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Payments
Merchants Using Interchange-Plus Pricing Continue to Overpay
April 11, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Editor's Note: Contributor Phil Hinke is a veteran of the credit card processing industry. He now consults with merchants to help lower their processing costs, believing the credit card industry is often unfair to them. His latest article, below, addresses misconceptions with interchang...
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Payments
Credit Card Processing: How to React to a Rate Increase
March 13, 2013 • Phil Hinke
Editor's Note: Contributor Phil Hinke is a veteran of the credit card processing industry. He now consults with merchants to help lower their processing costs, believing the credit card industry is often unfair to them. His latest article, below, addresses how merchants should react to ...
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Payments
Credit Card Processing: The Cost of Not Auditing Statements
February 13, 2013 • Phil Hinke
I was a keynote speaker at a recent meeting of U.S. and Canadian merchants. Whenever I present, I invite merchants to bring their processing statements and their merchant contracts so I can audit them afterwards. Before starting, I always ask each merchant how often he audits his statem...
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Payments
U.S. Merchants Can Now Charge for Credit Card Transactions
January 31, 2013 • Phil Hinke
In November 2012, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York preliminarily approved a proposed settlement agreement with Visa and MasterCard. As part of the settlement, Visa and MasterCard were required to allow merchants to charge for certain credit card transactions ...
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Payments
Layaway: Retro Purchasing Process Reappears Online
January 3, 2012 • Marcia Kaplan
Layaway made a big retail comeback in 2011, with stores such as Sears, Walmart, and Kmart encouraging customers to take advantage of this retro purchase technique. Walmart discontinued layaway in 2006 but brought it back in 2011 for fine jewelry, toys, and electronics. Sears and Kmart o...
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Payments
21 Bitcoin Currency Resources
August 17, 2011 • Sig Ueland
Bitcoin is the first decentralized digital currency. Unlike other virtual currencies—like Facebook credits, for instance—it is not run by a company or organization, nor pegged to another currency. Bitcoins are digital coins you can send through the Internet, without using a bank or cl...
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Payments
Increase Conversions with Alternate Payment Methods
June 24, 2011 • Pamela Hazelton
Ten years ago, PayPal was the ideal solution for small businesses that couldn’t justify the high costs of a merchant account. In its infancy, the growth of PayPal user accounts came from smaller merchants. PayPal later became the norm for eBay and large etailers because it allowed peo...
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Payments
Visa to Acquire CyberSource, Authorize.Net
April 22, 2010 • Kerry Murdock
The proposed acquisition by Visa of Authorize.Net’s parent company is the latest evolution for the storied payment gateway. Visa announced on April 21 its agreement to purchase CyberSource, Authorize.Net’s parent, for $26 per common share, or roughly $2 billion in cash. The deal is exp...
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Payments
Five Nifty Mobile-Banking Apps
April 13, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons
As mobile apps become more sophisticated, mobile banking is becoming a more convenient alternative to online banking. Some mobile banking apps simply replicate the tools available on their website, but others go further and offer functionality possible because of the device itself. Merc...
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Payments
Mobile Payment Systems Are Adapting, Developing
January 28, 2010 • Brendan Gibbons
Mobile payment processing can help merchants take advantage of the one item people rarely leave home without: a cell phone or mobile device. Accepting payments by text verification has been in practice since 2006 when companies like PayPal began offering a mobile option that allows us...
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Payments
The PeC Review: PayPal’s Website Payment Pro is a Good Value for Small Merchants
December 18, 2009 • Armando Roggio
Ecommerce is not possible without online payment processing. You might have the best products. You might have the best website. But, if customers cannot order and pay for products online, you’re not in the ecommerce business. PayPal’s Website Payments Pro is an all-in-one payment proc...
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Payments
When a Shopping Cart is Not PCI Compliant: Three Options for Merchants
November 19, 2009 • Kevin Patrick Allen
Earlier this week, Practical eCommerce shared three important questions to ask about your shopping cart. Today, as part of our ongoing PCI compliance series, I’ll take a look at options for ecommerce merchants currently using a shopping cart that is not PA-DSS (payment application data...
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