How to Become a Credit Card Merchant

Video Transcript

"My name is Bill Rae. I am with Alumni Financial Services out of Seminole, Florida. Got an interesting question today how to become a, credit card merchant. If you are in business or you have a store front and you are looking to accept credit cards, the first thing I should tell you is understand that all credit card processors base all their rates and whether you can get accepted or not on risk. That is what everything is all about, risk. So when you are looking at it they are going to look at things such as, how do you take credit cards? One of the worst risks in the world, obviously is to be taking it over the Internet, they cannot see you, they cannot see the card, they do not know if the card is stolen, a lot of fraudulent things could happen. The safest way is to walk into a a store front of if if someone walks into your store and actually presents the card with you, better yet it is a debit card where they stick in their PIN number, meaning that I would have to know I would have to have physical possession of the card and I would have to know that security code. So chances are I am who I say I am. Okay, with that being said, there are numerous ways that you can get credit card processing services. Almost every bank in fact I do not know a bank that does not, will offer you merchant services. Be careful now, 'cause most companies out there are interested i putting you into their system of how to do business. You need to take a careful look at how you intend on doing businesses. I can tell you this, in today's environment there are four levels of payment taking. One is qualified credit meaning issued from a bank, it is a it is an A rated paper, then you have unqualified you have mid-qualified and now you have a thing called pass through. So you are going to need to do a little asking and a little checking around, but when you try to understand what the costs are all you need to understand is, what is the total amount that they are charging me at the end of the month for what I am taking in? That gives you your true charge. When you go to a lot of banks and institutes that are just rubber stamping these things and making you do business their way, we see charges all the way up to four four point one percent, if you design is properly, you can get your cost down to about two percent. There is a lot more to this than what time allots so I will tell you as I do in any type of contract or any type of situation you are looking to get an extended arrangement on, make sure you understand what you are signing, make sure you understand what they want from you, what you get and what your costs are. Give us a call. My name is Bill Rae, I am with Alumni Financial Services and always we are here to help you build true wealth."