When I was a boy, I remember my abuela telling me that I should enjoy and make the most of my life because when I got older, time would fly by like the pages in the flipbooks I used to play with. She was right because, believe it or not, it is March already! I guess it’s finally time to put away the Christmas lights and get serious about those New Year’s resolutions. It is also an excellent time to review your merchant processing setup to make sure you have the best system in place for your business. Knowing what your merchant processor offers — or does not offer, in some cases — is key to stress-free payment management.
Since I hopefully have your attention by now, I would like to remind you once again that as a merchant processor, we realize that many circumstances may cause you to require more than one processor to enable you to conduct business globally. Many gateways and processors tout a 99.9% uptime, but what happens if you fall into that 0.1%? As the adage goes, “Two is one, and one is none.” Truth be told, I frequently suggest establishing multiple processors and gateway providers so that you can implement a cascading billing option and build redundancies. So, whether you are looking to get your first merchant processing account or setting up cascading billing, here are a few suggestions to consider when researching your options.
Business owners, managers and decision-makers are spoiled for choice when it comes to selecting a merchant services provider, which is what allows for secondary and even tertiary backup options.
Transparency is a keyword that is used a lot these days, no matter whether you are talking about a social media platform or government policies. When it comes to choosing a processor, transparency is essential. It is vital that you know what bank or banks the processor uses. I am not going to mention any names, but this industry has seen numerous instances of institutions that merchants relied on ending up in dire straits because the bank they depended on suddenly became unavailable for one reason or another.
You also want to be clear on what services your processor provides and, just as importantly, how much assistance they will provide after setting you up. Personally, I prefer everything under one roof, soup to nuts, with a single point of contact. There’s nothing more tedious than trying to explain your situation more than once every time you get a new customer service agent on the phone. Support is a huge factor to take into consideration when contracting any service provider. Will you end up needing to hire someone just to handle the integration of your website’s platform with that of your new merchant processor, or will the processor be available to answer your questions and help you? Having the option to be as hands-on or hands-off as you want is invaluable.
One of the best-known facts about payment processors is that there is no shortage of us. Business owners, managers and decision-makers are spoiled for choice when it comes to selecting a merchant services provider, which is what allows for secondary and even tertiary backup options. However, without getting too technical — OK, boring — there are only a handful of sponsor banks that allow adult content, and so payment providers’ options for front- and back-end processors are limited. That’s why it’s essential to know the following: What system is requesting the authorization? What system is settling that authorization? Who is depositing your money? How long does it take? Who can I call after hours if I need support? Unfortunately, often these questions are never brought up until something is broken, and the business is left without a way to conduct sales.
Still, it’s essential to know who’s doing what when designing and implementing your redundancies. It doesn’t matter if you sign up with three different merchant service providers if they’re all using the same front end, for example, because if that front end goes down and stays down for any amount of time, you’ll still be stuck without being able to conduct sales.
Another critical aspect to consider is security and privacy. Keeping your data safe, having the tools to improve fraud detection, and protecting your business’s reputation and bottom line are all important priorities for you, which makes them essential to us as payment processors.
Have a happy and safe St. Patrick’s Day, and don’t forget to spring forward when you go to bed on March 12!
Jonathan Corona has two decades of experience in the electronic payments processing industry. As chief operating officer of MobiusPay, Corona is primarily responsible for day-to-day operations as well as reviewing and advising merchants on a multitude of compliance standards mandated by the card associations, including, but not limited to, maintaining a working knowledge of BRAM guidelines and chargeback compliance rules defined in both Visa and Mastercard operating regulations.
