With a Merchant Account you will be contracted directly with the Acquiring bank, an Acquiring Bank is the one that finally will withdraw the money from the card holder and credit it your bank account.

With a Merchant Account you will also be assured that the financial institution or Acquiring Bank that handles your money will be regulated by Federal Banking Regulations which often protects you against losses of your money. I say often because 2008 and 2009 showed us the opposite, but under normal circumstance your money is safe in the bank.

You will need to contract with a Payment Service Provider which facilities you with a payment gateway to transmit the credit card transaction to the Acquiring Bank; you will have the benefits that most payment gateways will offer you a wide range of services like real time transaction overview and anti fraud tools to protect you from fraudulent orders.

Also most Acquiring Banks offer you other payment methods then just to accept credit card payments on your websites, most of them offer debit card payments for instant payments made by Visa Electron or Maestro, other payment methods could by ACH check processing, local debit cards country specific.
Finally by contracting directly with the bank you will need to be approved by them, which in most case isn’t any issue any longer, but they might have some stricter demands.

With a third party merchant account or 3rd party payment processor you won’t have all the mentioned features but you will have other benefits. For instant it is much easier and faster to get approved with a 3rd Party processor since they will do the merchant underwriting and take the risk on behalf of the merchant.

Some business models and sectors are simply not accepted by the banks directly, they require you to go through a 3rd party payment service provider with has specialized itself in the fields of certain businesses.
Most 3rd party payment service providers offer their services to the Adult Entertainment and Online casino business and have for that purpose incorporated mechanisms to protect merchants against chargebacks and other type of frauds.

The most different aspects of a 3rd party solution are:
You will be paid directly by the 3rd Party Merchant Account provider.
They will do the risk scoring of your transactions and the risk assessment of your business case.
The 3rd party payment processor will have way higher processing fees then you would get with a Merchant Account by an Acquiring bank, it can vary with 10% in differences.

If you are looking for a Payment Gateway and a Merchant Account then cclogic.com is able to help you, also if you are in the Adult Entertainment or Pharmacy business, contact us today.

The majority of fraud committed online is through using stolen credit card information; various methods are employed to obtain this, such as copying information from retailers, stealing it from company databases and even buying credit card information from company employees. We are constantly being told by the credit card industry that online purchases are safe, but, as with any transaction there are always risks involved.

Fraudulent transactions cause losses for credit card organisations as only a small percentage is actually recoverable, either by locating the thieves or recouping a portion from merchants. In the Visa and MasterCard rules, a merchant’s processing bank is fully accountable for every transaction processed.

If the merchant conducts business illegally or recklessly and causes lots of chargebacks, the provider can be left with huge losses. To prevent this, the provider passes some of the costs on to the merchant if they haven’t carried out sufficient security checks and completed all the card details correctly, these are the chargebacks. The merchant then has to cover the total cost of the transaction, transaction fees and is forced to pay chargeback penalty.

Because of these chargebacks, online merchants are recognising the need to take some responsibility in installing precautions to protect their online stores from credit card fraud. Anti-fraud systems are being acquired by merchants using highly secure anti-fraud tools and merchants are commonly signing up for services offered by the main credit card organisations, Visa and MasterCard SecureCode aim to dispel some of the apprehension customers feel when buying products online. These services involve customers registering a password with their card issuer and every time they use the card online they are asked for their personal password.

If you are looking for accepting credit card payments then please visit cclogic.com

During the time being in the payment service provider business I came through a lot of cases where Merchants pretended to sell legal Pharmacy products, also called non controlled drugs. In the early beginning of 2003 the card association’s regulations changed due to many Online Merchants in the Pharmacy business sold controlled drugs behind their main websites, which defiantly isn’t allowed. MasterCard was the first of the big 3 credit card companies that stopped processing for Online Pharmacies due to the fact they wasn’t able to control the many online  pharmacy websites nor the payment services providers which handled the payment transactions.

Visa decided to still deal with this type of business and asked the merchant to provide legal opinions from a lawyer or notary, this was mend to protect them self from getting merchants processing credit card payments for websites selling controlled drugs and to back up their bag if something goes wrong.

 First it looks like the business was in the process to be “cleaned” from Online Pharmacy websites which won’t play by the rules. At this time it was still possible in some cases to obtain a Mastercard credit card acceptance, and some Acquiring Banks around the World seemed not to follow the global regulations by the card associations because there was good money to earn while processing for Online Pharmacies selling non controlled and controlled drugs. However a few years later it wasn’t possible any longer since the Card Association including Visa and Mastercard started to issue huge penalties to those Merchant’s and Merchant Service providers which breached the regulations, fines in the range of USD 25.000 to USD 150.000 per incident.  

Today it is only possible to obtain a Merchant Account with Visa credit card acceptance, some Merchant Account- and Payment Service Providers do still pretend to be able to open Merchant Accounts for Online Pharmacy’s which include Mastercard credit card acceptance, those are fake, or they hide those transactions and code them as something else than what it is, Online Pharmacy.

Sometimes it is strange, since on one side the Card Association has to deal with their preferred Payment Service Providers to tell them what is allowed and which isn’t, and on the other hand the payment service provider’s have to tell the merchants what they can sell and not, this looks as a good way to regulate the entire business. But since there is so much money involved in processing Online Transactions for business which are strictly forbidden or require license to sell, then some Payment Service Providers and Acquiring banks look to involve them self in this business as long as no one ask questions and the merchants processing their credit cards don’t get caught by the Visa Monitoring program or they face massive chargebacks.

Continues on the forum, see the link below……….

This post was taken from our Cyprus Company Formation & Merchant Service Forum read the entire article by visiting the forum.

The Internet has become an ideal place for hackers, scammers and criminals to use as their very own illegal playground with little fear of ever being found.

Online merchants need to minimize the risk of online credit card fraud by installing security tools and procedures that can effectively reduce up to 50% of fraud, a bonus for your customers and business. Fraudsters will most commonly conduct their criminal activities by setting up a web-based free email address, such as hotmail.com, yahoo.com, gmail.com and many others. Web-based email is mainly logged on via a web browser and not an email client, such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla’s Thunderbird.

Web based emails can be set up by anyone and so are a popular choice for criminals who use them to remain anonymous as details are not easy to trace back to the owner. Credit card fraud is helped in its escalation by underground software programmes used to generate thousands of usable, but false credit card numbers and various newsgroups set up on the Internet where stolen credit card data is posted.
As awareness of credit card fraud grows merchants are learning to undertake as many precautionary means possible to protect themselves against online crime. The obvious method would be to not accept credit cards on the website, but that would lead to losing international sales, impulse buyers, unable to compete with other online merchants and the vast majority of customers buying elsewhere.

 
There are a few methods you can use to minimize the risk of online fraudulent transactions. First and foremost is to make certain all customer details are completed and don’t accept the sale until this is filled in correctly. If your website experiences many cases of fraudulent transactions, consider not accepting any orders from a free web based email address. This might seem a little dramatic but if your losses are multiple with charge back penalties and transaction fees on top, it could be the only solution. Ask the customer if they have an Internet service provider (ISP) or domain based address as these types of email accounts are much easier to track.

Most fraudulent orders should only come through the free, web-based, or e-mail forwarding services. If you are wary of turning away business from customers with web based emails, consider the risks involved before making any final decision. If people have a free e-mail service they will usually also have an ISP email address also, supplied when the account was opened. Just let the customer know that orders through free e-mail services aren’t accepted and ask them to use their standard ISP issued address.
A simple way to confirm a transaction is to call the telephone number given on the order form. This will either confirm the order or bring the card holders attention to the fact that their card is being used for fraudulent transactions. Then notify the card issuing banks fraud department that the card is being used illegally.

Regrettably, fraudsters are always developing new systems and methods to avoid detection and stay one step ahead of the merchants, banks and FBI. As one fraud method is identified and thwarted, a new one springs up to replace it. Criminals are generally of different types, people who just try one time and are easily stopped with straightforward safety measures, petty criminals who can be prevented with high-quality anti-fraud tools, and professionals. The professionals are the ones that will make this a full time career and be clever enough to keep one step ahead of the law. Fortunately, there are not too many of these. Fraud committed against merchants will continue to grow so defend your website with a specialized system of anti-fraud tools.

There are that many good Anti Fraud Tools out there that a simple earch at google will help you to find the solution for your business.

It has been a long time since all our business transactions were in cash or cheques. The wish to be able to handle more business, make our procedures faster and more efficient and to give a better service to our clients has resulted in a wide range of technologies and services that are now so pedestrian that we sometimes wonder how life would be without them. And as we are now working within a growing world economy, the need for fast and save business transactions and accepting credit card payments has never been greater.

We are proud to be a company that offers payment solutions, as accepting credit card payments online. We merge modern technology with knowledge and understanding in our field. Our products are valuable to private organizations as well as local authorities, and come with full support and guidance from our highly qualified team.

Basically, we offer a gateway for merchants , which is fast and simple in use. With our resources it is very simple to accept credit card payments online. All the transactions are safe and we always guarantee discretion from the start to the end of a procedure. Our services do not just cover this. Here is a list of the other products in our expertise:

·         Payment Gateway

·         Merchants Accounts

·         Virtual Terminals

·         Credit Card Fraud Detection Service

·         Consultancy Services

·         Partner Projects including:

Affiliates Program

Reseller Program

Private Label Gateway

Integrators

·         Customer Support

Payment Gateway - is a very powerful gateway solution that will provide you with:

·         All you need to run a lucrative e-commerce business.

·         A payment gateway that is a strong and secure and allows you to accept credit card payments online.

·         A system that is easy for medium sized as well as large companies.

·         Total power over all your transactions and printing your own statement.

·         A powerful system that lets you deal with several Merchant Accounts on a single server and install different clearing banks at the time.

·         A system that allows payments in any currency of choice.

Merchant Account – With the merchant interface you can:

·         Control transactions.

·         Observe transactions.

·         Get summaries, graphs and more. The merchant interface is a secure website that you can enter from anywhere with an Internet connection.

Virtual Terminal – Our Virtual Terminal software:

·         Allows fast manual processing of mail orders and telephone orders in a secure environment.

·         Is desktop application that allows use without browser and logins. This is to avoid online insecurity. Read more about our Virtual Terminal software here.

Consultancy Services – Cclogic.com Consultancy is for those are looking for advantages from the knowledge of our team and business. We can help you if:

·         you want to set up your own payment service provider.

·         you need insider information from the sector.

·         you need to plan how to deal with different complicated aspects of this industry such as risk management, due diligence and compliance.

·         you need tools to manage your business.

Partner Projects – Cclogic.com offers an unparalleled range of prospects for partners, and we are always looking for chances to expand our business. We offer:

·         a generous affiliate scheme where you can earn commissions from link backs and sales.

·         An excellent reseller program that connects your gateway to Cclogic.com. This means that you will make use of our experienced team, have the wide range of banks with which Cclogic.com is already connected and you will be able to start up your payment service provider business. You will have access to the advanced and recently developed anti-fraud system (VFraud) which you can offer your merchants as additional security. This is your opportunity to get started easily or to expand your existing PSP, ISO or MSP business.
As a reseller and Cclogic.com contractor, you will automatically join Cclogic.com’s affiliate program. Pass on a new or existing business to us as payment service provider, merchant service provider or independent sales organization and you will earn 45% commission for every lead that ends up as a contract. You see! We wish to make every effort to help you make good earnings while working with Cclogic.com.

·         Private Label Gateway – The private label gateway at Cclogic.com allows you to start accepting credit card payment fast and secure. We currently have two solutions; online or to install the Gateway Program on your computer.

Customer Support - Cclogic.com provides:-

·         Absolute support for all our products, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

·         Guarantee that we will look after your needs at all times, and supply many routes for support if required.

Press Releases and Current News – Cclogic.com provides:

·         a library of resources relating to the business

·         information to keep you abreast of relevant current news.

As you can see we are more than just a payment solution company that allows you to accept credit card payments online.  We offer an complete service of support and resources, which allows you to deliver the best service to your customers. We also keep you up to date with what is going on in your particular business area. We are sure that you will be very satisfied you choose us.