All your merchant services questions answered.
We Hope!
Bankcard International Group provides low, medium, and high risk merchant services to hard to place merchants. We offer merchant services combined with the best in class service and professionalism your business deserves. Our promise to you:
Truth in Pricing
We are committed to providing your business with transparency in pricing with NO hidden fees, NO unexpected rate increases – ever, NO bull.
Top Notch Service
Putting the service back into merchant services. We will treat you and your business with respect, honesty, and credibility at all times. We will provide you with top notch customer service and the absolute best merchant account solution for your business and industry type.
Credibility
We will only utilize time tested and proven solutions that provide your business with the confidence and stability it requires so that you can do what you do best – grow your business, not worry about the security of your processing.
Now lets answer some questions!
Acquiring banks are appropriately named as they acquire (or accept) credit card transactions from card issuing banks that provide consumers with credit cards. An acquiring bank is responsible for underwriting a “merchant account” for any business that it allows to accept credit card payments. In doing so, acquiring banks assume the risk associated with the transactions they process and fund. In the event that a business is unable to refund a reversal, chargeback, or refund the acquiring bank is liable to provide those funds to the cardholder.
Applying for a merchant account is relatively simple but you do need to be prepared to provide documentation to show that you are a legitimate business with good intentions.
Since merchant accounts are a function of the banking system and are susceptible to fraud they are required to adhere to federal guidelines including the Patriot Act and KYCC (Know Your Customer’s Customer) oversight. You will be required to provide your business information, personal identification, and credit information so the bank can verify your ability to be approved for an account.
No, you do not. If you would like to accept American Express simply let us know and we will take care of it for you at the time of application (unless you process more than $1,000,000 annually in Amex transactions).
A discount rate is actually the opposite of a discount! A discount rate is the rate you are charged for the processing of a credit card transaction. When a purchase is made with a credit card the acquiring bank is essentially “fronting” the proceeds to you, the merchant, and waiting for the banking system to reimburse them (which can take up to 10 days). For providing you with this service they charge a ‘discount rate’ or a rate at which accounts receivable is paid (discounted) before its maturity date. The discount rate is a blend of both a percentage of the amount charged and a per item fee.
Believe it or not, Check Payment Processing is actually the fastest growing sector of payment processing! Whether you need to accept check payments online, over the phone, or in person Bankcard International Group can help you! We even offer international businesses the ability to accept check payments domestically.
This is the term given to the process of validating whether funds are available on a credit or debit card. When you process a credit card transaction, a response comes back from the issuing bank with either an ‘approved’ or ‘declined’ authorization attempt by the issuing bank.
If the authorization is approved, funds are available in the customer’s account. Once an authorization is approved, a six or seven digit authorization code will be provided. If the authorization is declined there are either not enough funds in the customer’s bank account (if a debit card), the customer has reached their credit limit, or there is some other problem with the credit card. Authorizations “hold” the transaction funds until the day’s sales are “batched”, at which time it is finalized for processing and funding.