The Durbin Amendment, a component of the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Act, is new law that goes into effect October 1, 2011, that in the simplest terms is intended to reduce the amount you, the business owner, pay for debit card transactions.
While we have heard of many different reactions inside the Merchant Services industry to this act in terms of pricing adjustments and sales tactics, please know that by law it's provisions apply to all merchant accounts nationwide and you should not have to make any adjustments to your account to see the benefits.
Here's how it breaks down. For PIN Debit and Signature PIN Debit, or debit card transactions in which the card holder enters their pin number, transactions rates are capped at:
$0.21 transaction fee + .05% (AKA 5 basis points - ex. - for $1000 transaction .05% is $5) + $0.01 for card issuers with verifiable fraud prevention efforts.
For offline, or non-pin debit transactions (cases where the card is recognized as debit but the cardholder does not enter their PIN number, the rates are capped at:
.05% basis points + .11% dues and assessments + $0.21 transaction fee + $0.01 for card issuers who demonstrate fraud prevention efforts.
If you have any questions about how this works, regardless of your processor, we're here to help.
Please email dallasg@the-fta.org with any questions I'll be happy to help in any way I can.
Friday, September 16, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Financial service industries are changing, and so are we...
Our mission is to embody a culture of service, transparency and adherence to gold-standard business practices – and develop our role as leaders in our industry. Our current customers have achieved 1400% less risk than the average business, and they have minimized uncertainty and managed down volatility. These clients have the prestige that makes our business exclusive that we want to maintain. To set a course for our future, we have shifted from customer acquisition to a service-based company.
To set a course for our future, we are developing new company initiatives that will focus on improving our customer services. Our industry and customers will soon see the positive changes our adjustments will make. Stay tuned for more updates.
To set a course for our future, we are developing new company initiatives that will focus on improving our customer services. Our industry and customers will soon see the positive changes our adjustments will make. Stay tuned for more updates.
Monday, August 1, 2011
FTA Consortium/Employee Appreciation night!
The Funds Transfer Alliance held its annual company-wide consortium, as well as its Employee Appreciation night this last Friday, July 29th. The satellite office members of the company flew into Phoenix from all over the country to discuss new technologies, trends and trainings. The office was filled to brimming during the day, while the local employees got to meet the extended FTA family, and learn a bit more about what their time in the other regions is like.
During the evening, the Employee Appreciation night took place at “Let It Roll Bowl,” with a company-wide bowling tournament. The event was a huge success, with a professional photographer, great food and drink, and a remarkable turn out. At the end of the night, Dallas, Geri, and Merle were still standing as the victorious team, winning four games to take it all. Their efforts were rewarded with $100 gift cards and trophies, and several other employees were winners in the raffle, taking home gift baskets.
The event closed out late in the evening with rides provided for all attendees. The entire company left a little bit closer knit, and with great memories to share. Thanks to all who helped create a spectacular evening! We all look forward to the year to come!
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Netswipe - Web Cam Based Card Transactions
Jumio has elected to create a new system for credit card transactions: scanning by way of web camera. The new system, called “Netswipe,” apparently allows the system to verify a credit card visually while the CVV number will be entered manually by mouse. This system benefits from the security are allegedly manifold; through a number of factors, cards are verified and validated to ensure that no fake card can pass. There have been over a million test examples of the system, with an extraordinarily high success rate. On top of this, the company has a security team who monitors transactions manually to ensure a lower set of risks.
This system is designed to ensure that credit card fraud is a thing of the past. The technology is also PCI compliant already. The technology promises that any system that employs a camera and internet access – like cell phones, for example – will be fully capable of processing payments as a virtual machine.
This will allow consumers an unprecedented amount of ease while processing transactions from home. The manual entrance of card data will no longer be required, and thusly cached data in a browser will no longer be a weakness to be exploited by hackers, nor will key stroke loggers. Should this prove to be effective, yet another obstacle to online enterprise will be circumvented. Truly, this is great news for online businesses everywhere.
Monday, July 25, 2011
Fact and Myth: the Don Not Call List
No one enjoys having their dinner interrupted by a sales call, and the advent of the internet has done nothing to lower the access to phone numbers provided to auto-dialers. But the DNC list can be quite helpful in maintaining the peacefulness of your home. However, there is some confusion on who exactly is protected from whom. What numbers need to be registered? What are the qualifications of “telephone solicitations” for the Do Not Call list? How long will I be protected for? Hopefully this can help clear up some of the confusion.
There appears to be a bit of debate on what exactly defines a company as telemarketing. An example of this would be companies polling for political organizations – these calls do not fall under the heading of "solicitation." Nor, as an example, would calls requesting funding or donations for a company that is strictly not for profit. Even in this instance, a company must ONLY place calls in a not for profit setting to qualify to pass this restriction. There are even restrictions on calls from a company with an existing history with the consumer; if your last transaction was not within the last eighteen months, you are not permitted to call.
Possibly the most confusing aspect though is whether or not your phone number is eligible to be placed on the Do Not Call list. For example, there is no database of US cell phone numbers, and it has always been illegal for solicitation calls to be placed to cell phones. Because of that, there is no need to list a cell phone number on the Do Not Call list. Another misconception is that you can place a business number on the DNC list; All business to business calls are permitted for telephone solicitation. So registering your company’s number on the DNC list will not prevent B2B telemarketing.
Upon registering for the DNC list, your number will be protected for five years. After that, it is up to you to ensure that your number is relisted.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Durbin Amendment: A Compromise
The Durbin Amendment passed last week with a significant relaxation of the originally imposed $0.12 “swipe cap.” The final version involves up to a $0.21 cap, with a possible extension of 0.05% percent of the item value.
This alteration seems to have left both sides of the debate in a state of grudging acceptance. However, it is assumed that this cap will allow a wealth shift from banks to merchant processing. This should allow for greater competition, and in turn, a better outcome for consumers. It should be noted that although this is in some cases a 50% reduction of swipe costs to merchants, that investors’ confidence in banks’ ability to make profit does not appear to have been negatively impacted; bank share values have increased since the bill's completion. Prepaid debit cards have also been exempted from the fee cap; Some governmental subsidies make use of them and it was feared that a cap may cause banks to do away with them all together. A push in the sales of prepaid debit cards is thus expected.
However, this cap should allow small businesses some breathing room from the increasing hikes in process charge rates. As the middle men between consumers who feel that they pay too much, and banks who say they’re not paying enough, this cap reduces some of the strain of finding fair ground between them.
For more information on the Durbin Amendment, see: http://www.banktech.com/regulation-compliance/231000785
For more information on the Durbin Amendment, see: http://www.banktech.com/regulation-compliance/231000785
Friday, June 3, 2011
Heifer International is a Great Cause...
Thanks to The Phoenix Business Journal for spotlighting our work with Heifer International! http://bit.ly/kaNXxL in "Valley Benefits for Week of June 3." We hope that this helps bring awareness to this fabulous organization! For more info, visit heifer.org.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
How not to get scammed (A TTY Warning!)
Image via WikipediaNow unfortunately not everyone is so lucky. Members of our Merchant Support staff were absolutely devastated to hear from a merchant who explained that they had a suspicious transaction from a person using the internet telephone support system for the deaf (TTY). The card holder lived in Texas but had a Washington area code and a Texas shipping address. Be very wary of such discrepancies. Please don't be afraid to double check the transaction with the card issuing bank by calling the 800 number on the back of the card. If the card is not present, ask the customer to provide the number to you. If they have a problem with the request, you've caught yourself a bad guy. In this case, the merchant lost a substantial sum of money as well as the shipped product when the actual owner of the stolen card initiated a dispute. A few days later, another merchant who also had a TTY transaction heard a segment on their local radio station about recent scams targeting business owners using the phone system for the deaf and immediately called us. Sure enough, after a little digging, we've discovered an outbreak of this type of fraud across the country. We're not asking you to discriminate against legitimate customers that need the assistance of a TTY system. We are simply urging you to be extra thorough in qualifying the customer before sending your product. If you have any questions, my contact info is below. For more information, please read this story on MSN about TTY scams.
Anatomy of True Scam...
Image by tom.hensel via FlickrDear Michaels Customer: Michaels has just learned that it may have been a victim of PIN pad tampering in the Chicago area and that customer credit and debit card information may have been compromised. In the event that this is a more widespread issue, we are taking the precautionary measure of alerting all of our customers so that they may protect themselves. We recommend immediately contacting your bank and/or credit card company to check for and report any unauthorized charges, as well as seek their advice on how to protect your account in the event that your information has been taken. Additional information is available on the Federal Trade Commission website at http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt150.shtm. We sincerely regret any inconvenience this may have caused you, and we want you to know that we are working with law enforcement authorities in every way we can to help in the investigation. As always, we thank you for being a Michaels customer. Thank you. Sincerely, John B. Menzer CEO, Michaels Stores |
The Anatomy of a (Non)scam
Image via WikipediaSpeaking of God, Google sure is used for some interesting purposes. In the latest case, have you seen how savvy web saboteurs use scraper sites in a very bizarre manner, essentially stealing key words to fill their content? The purpose of these sites is to draw users to a site that has no real purpose other than a prayer that you'll click through because you couldn't find any useful information and line their pockets, albeit slowly, with Adsense. But since they're entirely automated, it's not like it's any sweat off their backs.
Why do I bring this up? Well, it's perfectly fine if people want to degrade the user's experience. I mean, most people know better than to click through or love up on these sites. However, when they do this, it's less than ideal.
Now, obviously a scraper site with the Headline "funds transfer alliance scam" isn't the worst thing that's ever happened because if anyone looks at the actual page they realize what it is or at least that it's some weird, automatically generated site. Or is it the worst thing that's ever happened? Riddle me this... I, along with several of my coworkers, have auto searches on key words related to our company. It's important to know if people are having problems. It's an early detection system. We want to be able to respond quickly. And, the disconcerting factor of all of this is that we get these all the time. It's amazing how many times your heart can drop getting a funds transfer alliance scam alert only to find out it's 1) a nigerian funds transfer scam 2) a scraper site.
Here's the question? Do you monitor your company daily and if so do you have any bizarre circumstances that happen over and over and if so what are they and do they have the potential to harm your business?
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
One small step for Mobile Payments... One giant... uh... Leap?
Admitting to your friends and family that you're a Grade A Supernerd can be hard. Although, to be fair, they've probably suspected it since you were little. It's rare that it's a total shock to everyone. But showing the equivalent of your Star Wars Fan Club membership card to your current crush is ill-advised unless he or she is a card-carrying member of the club as well. So this blog comes with a warning: If you have a crush on a Starbucks Barista: The Funds Transfer Alliance advises you to proceed with caution!
Image via WikipediaThat said, a couple days ago when Starbucks announced a mobile pay feature for smartphones that will allow you to pay for your java/scone combo their 6800 locations, well, we were atwitter with expectations and questions and curiosities. Now, for one company to create an closed payment system that won't work anywhere else is normally considered futile (unless your name is Apple) because you require people to carry some extra card or key chain gadget or something inconvenient. But since Starbucks (and soon McDonalds) is one of the few big chains where this grand mobile pay experiment is brewing, and people carry their phones with the EVERYWHERE anyways, we're curious to see what happens even if the system crosses no other platforms.
Essentially, to make it work, you download the app, buy a Starbucks card, which you can do online or in person, and connect the card to the app on your phone. That's frankly way too many steps and The FTA is positive it will get easier in the future. But for now, you still probably will have plastic and extra steps involved even if that's what you're intent on eliminating for environmental and or convenience purposes.
We linked to a blog we really like in which he compares this system to the NRA's philosophy about gun control. The analogy is great. Everything is like everything!
If you try it, let us know what you think! And if you see any other closed payment systems that are cool, please let us know!
Stay Caffeinated and Secure!
Image via WikipediaEssentially, to make it work, you download the app, buy a Starbucks card, which you can do online or in person, and connect the card to the app on your phone. That's frankly way too many steps and The FTA is positive it will get easier in the future. But for now, you still probably will have plastic and extra steps involved even if that's what you're intent on eliminating for environmental and or convenience purposes.
We linked to a blog we really like in which he compares this system to the NRA's philosophy about gun control. The analogy is great. Everything is like everything!
If you try it, let us know what you think! And if you see any other closed payment systems that are cool, please let us know!
Stay Caffeinated and Secure!
The Future Is Now!
Image via WikipediaKeep an eye out for more information in the coming months. The Funds Transfer Alliance will continue to provide updates and product recommendations that will keep you on the vanguard.
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