Special Note:
Changing processors/merchant services can be expensive! Did you know that we offer multiple ways to reduce or eliminate both up front and ongoing fees for changing processors/merchant services companies? You may qualify for some or all of the following:
No change fee (normally $390)
Waiving of ongoing monthly fees (normally $50 a month per terminal)
Free payment terminals with lifetime warranties (normally $490/terminal)
4 free hours of premium support services every 90 days (normally $672)
95% reduction in the fees that you are currently paying for credit card processing/merchant services (Look at your last statement - if you paid $2000 in credit card processing/merchant services fees last month, then your next statement could only be $100)
Overview:
There is important information to consider before you switch processors.
Procedure
Payment terminal encryption
Your payment terminal was likely encrypted for the specific payment processor you have been using. In many circumstances, if you're switching processors, the encryption also needs to be updated (though not all). If you're processing debit cards as pin-based debit, this is 100% required in all cases. If you're not, you may be able to get away without it. Here's what the risks are if you try it without - some pin-based credit cards will decline in your system and you'll have to turn away customers. If you're not doing pin debit there's a 50-50 chance you don't need to be concerned with terminal encryption.
Getting your terminals re-encrypted can be simple or hard depending on who you're working with. Some processors will subsidize (at varying degrees) a payment terminal swap out. They'll replace your current units with new / used encrypted units.
In other cases, the encryption will require you to pack up and ship the units somewhere and wait for them to come back, which isn't typically practical. It's a time-consuming process.
Terminal encryption also typically provides some additional level of security as it relates to PCI Compliance.
Processor change fees
Changes to card processing have a
flat rate charge per terminal for reconfiguration and testing. A minimum of 2 business days' notice is required prior to the appointment.
See here for details on current rates.
In addition, if you don’t currently pay for Card Defender fees on your monthly/annual invoice (maybe you’re on North or had a special deal when you signed up), there’s a very good chance that you’ll have to begin paying those full monthly fees with a processor change. The monthly fee is currently $50 per POS lane for utilizing the credit card processing module of Cloud Retailer. (Does not include additional costs for the payment terminal hardware, encryption fees, and mounting stands.) This could mean that your total costs to switch merchant services companies/processors could well exceed any potential cost savings (unless using North).
Supported processors:
- North (Formerly North American Bancard)
- TSYS
- Heartland Payments
- First Data
NOTE: American Express and Discover Card
For whatever reason, when many processors set up new accounts they forget to set up the account to process with American Express and Discover. We're not sure why this happens, but it happens A LOT, and when it doesn't work the first response is that the POS system is the problem. Please make sure to let them know that you want them enabled (or not) and asked twice if they are sure it's set up properly :).
Be careful of processors selling services that are not their core competency
We've deployed it a number of times, and it can work great, but it can be very challenging to deploy a payment processor that is reselling services that are not their primary product. You could, for example, run into a Vantiv sales representative (Card Defender does not support Vantiv at this time) and they will attempt to board you to TSYS, which is actually their competitor - but they can sell that product. It's sort of like a Ford dealership selling you a Tesla - when something goes wrong it can be a nightmare.
Company 1 will tell us to talk to Company 2 and around the circle, we go. Neither of them has the whole picture of your transactions and since it's something they are not accustomed to dealing with, nobody knows what to do - and you end up suffering.
If after considering all of the above (especially passing on the items mentioned under "Special Note"), you are changing your processor then:
There is some technical work we will have to schedule with you for your Card Defender credit card integration to switch your processing - what we refer to as a "VAR change". To get started, work with your new processor to complete this form and one of our team will work with you to schedule:
https://www.card-defender.com/varchange