Trending Articles

Advantages of Flexible Payment Technologies
Can you imagine a piece of clothes that perfectly fits you all your life, adjusting to all the changes happening to your body? Or clothes that grows with your kid? What could it be made of? Some advanced type of self-reproducing stretchable fiber or plastic, perhaps? In fact, science fiction writers and movie directors have already imagined it for us. Remember, for example, “Back to the future III” movie. Well, in...
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10 Steps to Become a Payment Facilitator
The topic of becoming a payment facilitator is as fresh and relevant as ever for many companies. During the last decade, we have witnessed a real PayFac boom. To a large extent, it was triggered by demand for payment facilitation services and willingness of acquirers to delegate merchant experience to other entities. Success stories of PayPal, Stripe, Braintree, WePay, and others became model examples to follow. For businesses that already have...
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How Merchant Onboarding Works and How to Improve It
The concept of merchant onboarding is extremely relevant for both prospective merchants and various types of payment aggregators and resellers, such as ISO, payment facilitators, and payment service providers. Merchant account applicants want to start accepting electronic payments as soon as possible, while payment aggregators of various sorts want to make payment experience for merchants from their portfolios smooth and seamless. In this article we are going to look at...
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Contactless Payments for Contactless Times
Traditionally, the term “contactless payments” referred to EMV payment solutions based on near-field communication (NFC) technologies. Almost every payment card or app user nowadays is familiar with such technologies as Visa payWave or MC PayPass, not to mention Apple Pay and Google Pay. From cardholder’s perspective it is easy: you just “tap” the terminal with your EMV card or gadget, and transaction comes through. A new perception of contactless payments Presently, the...
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Payment Facilitators and Acquirers: Rivalry or Symbiosis?
The advance of payment facilitation services during the last decade was tremendous. Initial set of formal rules of the game for payment facilitators was adopted by card networks in 2011. Since then, the PayFac concept has gone a long way. As of now, we are witnessing a situation when independent sales organizations (ISO) are vacating the stage for payment facilitators, while PayFacs themselves are rapidly increasing their market share. So, what...
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2020 Stock Market Crash and Cost Reduction
While half a year ago the economic recession was only a possibility, the 2020 stock market crash turned it into a tangible fact. The unprecedented impact of coronavirus on economy of all major countries triggered the end of an 11-year bull-market run. It made the key market indices plummet several times during a 3-week period during February and March 2020. Unfortunately for companies, shareholders, and consumers alike, the stock market crash...
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Best Payment Gateway For an Application or Website
More and more present-day companies are choosing to sell their core products using payment applications, online websites, and marketplace platforms. These companies are striving to embed payment functionality within their websites and applications. For this purpose, every company needs to find the best payment gateway solution to suit its business model. The problem of payment gateway integration is common for several categories of companies operating through online websites and apps. These...
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The Role of an Acquiring Bank in Transaction Processing
More and more present-day companies need to process electronic payments. Some of them already managed to make a transition from cash-based operations to online transaction processing. Following their example, new market players are trying to find the best solutions that would allow them to process electroinc payments for their core products. What it takes to process transactions electronically Let us now take a look at essential components of electronic payment processing solutions....
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5 Companies that Benefit from Becoming Payment Facilitators
Before listing benefits of becoming payment facilitators for special businesses, could you tell a major chord from a minor chord? If you can, then you have a good chance of becoming a musician. Are you tall and athletic? If you are, you might make a great basketball player. Are you good at maths and planning? Maybe, you might become a good software developer. Or an inventor of new algorithms. Or...
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The Principles of Collaborative Payment Processing
The world of electronic payment processing is now turning into a sort of virtual Babylon. Every processor and acquirer speaks its own language, lives according to its own rules and requirements, and imposes them on its clients. However, the collaborative payments platforms that emerged recently help merchants drive costs down and succeed in the new world of payments. Companies with low processing volumes might not feel it. But as their volumes grow,...
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Becoming Multicultural: Accepting Payments Worldwide
Many companies currently want to expand their operations to new geographies and start accepting payments in different currencies. Globalization takes its toll on the payment services market as well.  As a result, they have to answer similar questions. People study foreign languages and cultures for different reasons. Some just want to be able to buy groceries when abroad. Others want to read foreign books or sing foreign songs. And someone might...
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Migrating to a New Payment Processor
What does the word migration mean to you? Huns led by Attila or Mongols led by Genghis Khan sweeping through the continent? The exodus of the Jews from Egypt? American pioneers moving westwards? Are Mormons moving to Utah to escape persecution on religious grounds? Millions of people changing their homelands in search of a better life? Well, in the world of merchant services, migration to a new payment processor is a...
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From Hosted Payment Gateway to Licensed Solution
What is better: renting accommodation or buying one? Naturally, every answer depends on the particular respondent’s situation. And each of the two options has its pros and cons. Some rent accommodations and switch from one landlord to another as often as they find it suitable. Others take burdensome mortgages, which take many years to payout. These are two extreme cases, of course. Besides them, there are, in fact, many in-between...
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6 Steps to Replace a Legacy Platform
What is your attitude toward a legacy platform replacement? Are you OK with moving to a new place? Of course, everything depends on your particular situation. Living in a cozy little apartment or in a place where you grew up might feel comfortable for a time. However, at some point, you realize that you need to move elsewhere. The place might be too small or too old. Or you need to...
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Accepting Payments without a Merchant Account
-Can I accept electronic payments without a merchant account? -Yes (if the very term “merchant account” scares you). But be ready to go through the necessary background verification process. It is, by the way, more or less, the same as the process of getting a regular merchant account. -Can I pay for a product or service if there is no money in my pocket? -Well, yes, if you have a payment...
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