subject: Credit Card Debit Processing Merchant Account - Facts You Must Know [print this page] A business firm, now a days, is easily able to accept payment with debit or credit card from their client, with the help of a merchant account. With merchant account, a business is able to send the debit and credit card transactions automatically to the bank for the purpose of deposit or authorization. Many businesses, even today, follow the older trends of sending the transaction details via mail or telephone.
However, there are certain restrictions upon whom to allot merchant accounts. there should always be the involvement of the sponsoring bank or an authorizing agent of the bank to be issued a merchant account that too to the customers who are linked with MasterCard and Visa. Many big debit/credit card processing firms often connect with various warehousing clubs to offer merchant accounts to their clients. many merchants are directly allotted a merchant account from the member banks. However, they put certain limitations in terms of geographical area or the condition of the business being 2 or more years older.
It may be noted that there are specific fees attached with a merchant account, either periodic or charged on percentage basis. The different types of fees include 3-tier pricing and 6-tier pricing that is further diversified into various fee structures. Beside this, there is a different fee structure as well that includes authorization fee, statement fee, monthly charge, customer service fee, annual charge, batch fee, early termination fee and chargeback fee that are a must.
To ensure the security of merchant accounts, a set of rules has been set up by the Security Standards Council, known as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which protects the account holders from any fraudulent activity.
