Level 3 Merchant Accounts for Business

Accepting Commercial Cards

• More than 350 federal entities participate in GSA's SmartPay program— using purchasing cards (p-cards) to make purchases of goods and services needed for their operations, spending more than $27 billion on over 90 million transactions in fiscal year 2007.

What is a Level 3 Merchant Account? 

Setting up a business to accept purchasing cards for payment is different than establishing a standard retail merchant account or MOTO merchant account. 

About Interchange Rates

• Interchange fees are collected and paid to the card Issuing Bank.
• Interchange is the single largest component of merchant discount rate pricing.
• All banks, processors and merchants operate from the exact same Interchange.
• MasterCard and Visa Interchange carry different rates and qualification regs.
• Interchange is priced at the transaction level and depends on the combination of the industry category, the method of acceptance, the card product accepted and the transaction size.
• Managing Interchange to meet requirements is the key to receiving the best pricing.

• Most businesses are not submitting the data they need to qualify and could benefit by upgrading to a Vantage Level 3 Merchant Account.

2 Keys to Level 3

Two elements are critical for properly setting up a Level 3 merchant account.

1.  An Interchange pricing structure, without it merchants will not be able to obtain all the incentives rates available. 

A common pricing method is a 3-tiered rate plan, qualified, mid qualified and non-qualified.  Packaged rates in this fashion prevent merchants from qualifying for all the incentive rates available such as purchasing large ticket, GSA large ticket, and Visa B2B incentive rates for select SICs, etc.  Tiered pricing also doesn’t account for the major differences market share, rates and qualifications between MasterCard and Visa.  

ALL merchants large and small can get an Interchange rate price structure to lower their costs, but this especially important to B2B Level 3 merchants. 

2.  Level 3 Payment Technology

To submit the data needed to get the best rates, a secure, PCI certified, Level 3 payment processing technology must be used.  Standard credit card terminals are not capable of supporting Level 3.

We recommend the benefits of virtual software that can be accessed through a secure web site application.   Since storing card holder data is so important today, avoiding having card data stored on local PCs is a big selling feature. With evolving Level 3 requirements, the virtual software is always the most updated version and multiple users can access the service on any computer with Internet access without traditional software licensing, installation, networking, security and upgrade management issues.

Three Level 3 payment solutions to meet any size opportunity 

Solution 1: EC-Zone (Virtual Terminal)  
 
EC-Zone:
A complete online solution designed for suppliers that require an easy to use, affordable system for processing credit card transactions with Level 3 information. EC-Zone is a fully-hosted secure PCI compliant "virtual terminal". Any computer with an Internet connection can be used to conduct transactions.  Multiple personnel can use different logins for different levels of administrative access and multiple processing from multiple computers.  What's more, your products will now be easily searchable to online prospectors, especially people who need Level 3 purchases, like Federal Government employees. EC-Zone provides an easy and effective way to accept p-card and other e-Commerce transactions with minimal investment or development. The EC-Zone's online tools can be used to view transaction and customer activity, and they are also the perfect complement to EC-Linx and EC-Batch for ad-hoc reporting.

Solution 2: EC-Linx (Real-time Payment Gateway)
 
EC-Linx:
A direct transaction-processing using TCP/IP and the HTTPS (secure) protocol. EC-Linx is designed for suppliers using or developing web-commerce applications that require payment processing capabilities featuring real-time transaction authorization and integrated Level-3 line item detail information. All transactions are processed securely under SSL from the supplier's servers to the EC-Linx payment gateway.
 
Solution 3: EC-Batch (File Export and Transfer)
 
EC-Batch:
A system for processing transactions in batch files that are transferred via secure FTP.  This solution is designed for suppliers who do not require real-time responses, and whose business processes require transactions be entered into and managed by their existing systems. Typically used in high volume situations, transactions may be bundled and transmitted at the supplier's discretion. The EC-Batch automatically processes the file and returns transaction responses to the supplier's system.

Consider upgrading to a Level 3 Merchant Account

• Do you accept business, corporate or GSA purchasing credit cards? 
• How do you accepting cards, are you using a terminal or software technology?
• Do you have a tiered pricing plan and pay Non-Qualified Surcharges?
• Do you have the same rate for both MasterCard and Visa?