Online Payment Processing by Streamline.com

eCommerce payment processing by Streamline.com

This service provider in the payment card processing domain claims to be the largest of its kind within Europe and boasts of being able to cater to all types of businesses irrespective of the size. They are a member of The Royal Bank of Scotland Group.

Since this company is also one of the premier providers of merchant accounts, it has the flexibility of accepting both debit and credit card payments by different modes such as by phone or through the website.

With card transactions on the increase, you as a merchant need the support of a company which makes your business dealings easier and more customer friendly. Streamline is the company which makes that possible through their different service offerings.

Services offered

a) Cardholder preferred currency service

This is made possible through the many point of sale terminals provided by the company and the transaction is easily processed due to the terminal duly recognizing the card in question and making available the required currency.

b) Card payment on the move service

This service is for those who are always mobile as the company provides mobile payment terminals through which the card payments can be processed.

c) Streamline online service

This is another management type of service which allows you to view the various card transactions that you have done for the business and since they are up dated daily, you can have real time information on all your card transactions.

d) PAN truncation service

The primary account number truncation is a service wherein the card number is disguised and is not made visible to avoid any fraudsters taking advantage of accessibility to such numbers.

e) Internet trading service

With the growing popularity and access to internet, many businesses are able to now conduct a lot of their business activities through the internet. So ecommerce and online trading activities are very much a part and requirement of many customers. Streamline is able to offer internet retailing opportunities and also provides general guidelines on how to get started on this activity.

Strengths

1. Handle a huge number of transactions within the UK
2. Can process most major card payments and as a merchant you can cater to diverse customers.
3. State of art technology which ensures that transactions are quickly done and there is no waiting time for customers.
4. Great back up systems to ensure total reliability at all times

Support Provided

They provide support services to help customers manage their account much better by helping out in areas like easy authorization, ensuring fraud free sales, reconciling statements to reflect the up dated information and so on.

They place great emphasis on getting proper feedback from customers and encourage it through the online feedback form. Customers can also use the email and visit the website to place complaints or offer suggestions.

They offer both call back as well as Text phone services to enable customers to get through to them.Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image. Your browser may not support display of this image.

PCI Compliance – A must of ecommerce credit card processing

PCI DSS or Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard is a kind of a universal norm for security established by the PCI Security Standards Council.  This norm or standard needs to be followed by any organization that utilizes processes or sends information pertaining to the credit cards issued by companies like MasterCard, American Express and Visa.
How are you impacted?
The main impact is on the security aspect.  Close to 234 million credit card holder data were either leaked or hacked into in the last four years in the world, which led to the institution of certain mandatory check points.  For instance, Visa made changes to its Account Information Security Program beginning October, such that it made it compulsory for all merchants handling less than a million annual transactions comprising of levels  2, 3 and 4 to process through the PCI DSS accredited provider only.  They could do this either through a PCI Compliance certificate provider or give alternate certification of this compliance to demonstrate that they are indeed following this.

When you as a merchant process through any of the PCI Compliance certificate providers, the advantage is that the site itself through its payment pages is fully compliant with PCI and you are only required to fill up the SAQ (Self Assessment Questionnaire), related to the transactions.  Only when you store, process or transmit cardholder data on your business network, will you need to get vulnerability scans done every quarter.

Irrespective of your methodology of processing online credit card payments, there are some measures that you are supposed to take to ensure that your business is in full compliance with PCI.
What are these measures?

Depending on the number of transactions processed by you as a merchant, there are different levels stipulated.  These levels are the data you need to provide for showing compliance.

* A merchant who processes more than six million records annually, needs to get an audit done at site in addition to getting his network scanned every quarter.
* Merchants processing less than six million records or transactions per annum do not need to conduct an audit at site, but need to fill up the SAQ and get their network scanned annually and quarterly respectively.

Merchants processing through any of the PCI Compliance certificate providers however need not go through the quarterly scan as that will be taken care of by the Level 1 PCI DSS compliance validation that is inherent in the systems of these providers.  Of course, the only condition is that you do not use your own business network with your site being located at a different place to process credit card information.
Types of Self Assessment Questionnaires

Though the SAQ is of 4 types, you are only required to complete the type that is relevant to your activity.

* SAQ A
This is applicable for merchants who outsource card member data and who use the services of the PCI Compliance certificate provider.

* SAQ B
This type is relevant only for those merchants who process information face –to-face.

* SAQ C
Those merchants who have point of sale systems linked to the service provider through the internet will be required to use SAQ C since there is no data of card members stored at the site.

* SAQ D

This type is for merchants, who function in an environment wherein all necessary card member information is stored and undergoes preliminary processing internally.

The PCI website provides total information on the SAQ that is meant for your business and you can download the same for completion when required.