Merchant Stronghold for High Risk Offshore Merchant Account In USA
About Merchant Stronghold
Merchant Stronghold is well known for its services and fast processing system for
- Debit card processing
- Credit card processing
- ACH
- Payment gateways
- Chargeback management services
Merchant Stronghold also provides facilities that make accepting payment way easier, these facilities are:
- POS machine service
- Virtual terminal
- Online setup
- Why choose Merchant Stronghold
Merchant Stronghold is in the market since long and has maintained good repo by providing best services to our clients. Our commitment to excellence drives our interactions with clients, customers and each other which helped us in attaining 100% customer satisfaction rate. Following are the things that make our service better than the other players in the market:
INTEGRITY
Integrity, trust, and honesty are the foundation of everything we do as a company. We look for health and long-term relationship with our clients and not just looking for one time sale.
TEAMWORK
We operate as a team, sharing experiences, resources, and opportunities. We help others when they need it and ask for help when needed. As a team, we along with our clients, workout for best solution which not only meets all the current needs but also meets the need of near future.
INNOVATION
We make every effort to translate creative and unique ideas into services, products, or processes that create value. We have a well knowledgeable and creative team which works hard to come up with new and better solutions all the time, depending on the requirement of our client.
COMMUNICATION
We foster an environment where all associates’ voices are heard and everyone is encouraged to share their opinions. We work as a team and appreciate active participation of all our employees, encourage new ideas and irrespective of their designation, value their opinion. Not only with our team but we also respect any valuable suggestion from our client.
ACCOUNTABILITY
We are responsible to each other, to our clients/customers and to ourselves to do the right thing. ‘Product sold’ is not our aim. We take responsibility for each and every service we provide and have a team on standby mode 24*7, 365 days to helps our clients with any issue they are facing.
FAST SETUP/APPROVAL
We expertise in our service and are capable of getting same day approval that includes gateway integration, which makes it possible for our clients to accept payments faster without wasting time be standing in a big queue. Our 12 processor relationships ensure 98.7% of accounts approval. We assure you to get started with your business as soon as possible.
RELATIONSHIP WITH BANKS
We have successfully maintained a good relationship with most of the major banks in the home country as well as abroad. Hence, if you are looking for an offshore merchant account for your high-risk business, we are just a call away.
How Do Payment Gateways Work?
Payment Gateway: A payment gateway is an e-commerce application that authorizes payments for e-businesses, online retailers, bricks, and clicks, or traditional brick and mortar businesses. It is the virtual equivalent of a physical point of sale terminal located in most retail outlets. Payment gateways encrypt sensitive information, such as credit card numbers, to ensure that information passes securely between the customer and the merchant.
How Does Payment Gateway Work?
A payment gateway facilitates the transfer of information between a payment portal (such as a website, mobile phone) and the Front-End Processor or acquiring a bank. Here is a step by step guide detailing how Payment Gateways work:
Step 1: A customer places an order on the website by pressing the ‘Submit order’ or equivalent button, or perhaps enters their card detail using an automatic phone answering service.
Step 2: If the order is via a website, the customer’s web browser encrypts the information to be sent between the browser and the merchant’s web server. This is done via secure socket layer encryption.
Step 3: The Merchant then forwards the transaction details to their payment gateway, this is another secure socket encrypted connection, the payment gateway forwards the transaction information used by the merchant’s acquiring bank, The payment processor forwards the transaction info to the card association.
Step 4: The credit card issuing bank receives the authorization request and sends a response back to the processor with a response code.
Step 5: The merchant submits all their approved authorizations, in a “BATCH”, to their acquiring bank for settlement via a processor.
Keep your transactions secure
- The security of payment processing Is extremely important. Here is a list of some of the technical details that happen with payment gateways to ensure the process is secure:
- Since the customer is usually required to enter personal details in the transaction process, the payment gateway is often carried out through HTTPS protocol.
- To validate the request of the payment page result, signed request is often used- which is the result of the hash function in which the parameters of an application confirmed by a secret word, know only to the merchant and payment gateway.
- To validate the request for the payment page result, sometimes IP of the requesting server has to be verified.
Which is the best and cheapest way to buy offshore merchant services?
Merchant services are an essential purchase for near enough all businesses and business owners will typically turn to their own bank for these services. Unfortunately for business owners, this is not usually the cheapest way to source payment processing.
At first, the difference between deals might seem negligible with just one or two percent difference but those small differences will quickly add up as your business grows. Getting a bad deal on your payment processing can cost you tens of thousands of pounds every year.
In this article, I’m going to look at the most popular merchant service sales channels and touch on how competitive the pricing is.
Banks
Near enough, all banks will sell merchant services to its business customers. If you have a business bank account then most certainly you would have been asked the question about card acceptance by a banking manager or representative.
The fact is that most banks don’t actually own their own merchant service products. Instead, they partner with a card processor and resell their service. RBS and Natwest is a sales agent for Worldpay, HSBC resells Global Payments, Santander uses Elavon and Lloyds and Halifax use First Data.
- So why do business owners trust banks to provide a third-party service? Perception!
- People see banks as reliable and they assume that their staff has extensive product expertise.
- Sadly and surprisingly, that’s not the case.
- There’s one main reason why I would strongly recommend you avoid buying merchant services through a bank: Price.
Card processors love selling through a bank because it’s an easy win as leads are handed on a plate. You see, most businesses will turn to their bank for merchant services and tend to accept their pricing without question, simply because the business owner may be new to the whole process and doesn’t know any better and they assume by going directly to the bank will get them a better deal as it removes any middlemen.
This allows the banks to rack up their fees and make a small fortune off their business customers. Worse still, the banks are given very little wiggle room by the card processors so can’t reduce their fees even if you push them on pricing. This may seem surprising but it's very true.
Merchant bank/Card Processor
The worldwide web has made it simpler for consumers to buy directly from manufacturers or suppliers and cut out the expensive middlemen.
Merchant services are, in theory, the perfect example. Instead of going to your bank and buying a product at an inflated rate, the other option for you is to go straight to the card processor/merchant bank direct and buy from them. That’s one less step in the buying process so it must save you money, right?
Unfortunately not. While cutting out the middlemen should mean a better deal for customers, it’s not always the case.
Card processors are well aware that any business owner who calls them has pretty much decided that they want to use their product. That means they can bump up the price without losing too much business. The price you get direct from a card processor isn’t quite as high as the bank rates but it’s certainly not competitive, especially as a new business owner, as the merchant banks take advantage of this fact.
Now, unlike the bank salespeople, sales staff at card processors do have leeway to negotiate on price. So, if you decide to buy directly through a card processor, negotiate as hard as you can to secure the very best deal possible.
Asking Good Questions When Selling Credit Card Processing
If you are running a business of sales and purchases, you need to choose a new credit card processor. But it is not as easy as it seems, it is a big decision to make. Before making the decision, you must know it includes the fee charged and contracts. Also the customer service department and cost-effective tools available. Do the comparison, study the market and then make the final decision. Let us now discuss it further. 3 questions you should ask your new credit card processor before finalizing it:
Structure of Fee Charged
When you opt for such tools, you are charged with a certain amount of fee. But it is important to know what exactly those fees are, more commonly called breakage of the fee. The fact is that most of the high-risk merchants have no idea about the process and end up paying a high amount of fee without actually knowing the hidden high markups in their pricing structure. To process the transaction, an interchange part of pricing structure is paid to the card issuer. Apart from this, there is an extra fee that they put on the top of it to gain more profit. So, when you are applying for new credit card processor/merchant payment processor, request them to separate out the interchange fee so that you can have a clear idea about how much money they are making or charging you in total.
Contract and Time Duration
Whenever a merchant wants to opt for a new credit card processor, he/she needs to sign a contract, which will lock you with them for certain period of time. It is important for high-risk merchants to check for options when shopping around for new processor and also to finalize the processor with shorter time duration instead of multi-year contracts. The advantage of choosing a short-term contract is:
- They will work hard for your business to impress you so that you renew the contract instead of shopping for new credit card processor or merchant payment processor once the contract expires. If you end up signing a multi-year contract, you will soon be forgotten and ignored and service quality provided may deteriorate.
- In case of serious trouble when you have a short-term contract or non-existing contract, immediate help will be provided. Everything to resolve the issue so as to retain you as a customer. Whereas, if you have a long-term contract, it might take longer to resolve the issue you are facing.
- When you are not happy with the services provided by your current credit card processor, you can try out the new processor. They can meet your needs, but if you have a long-term contract, you only stick with the same provider until the contract expires.
Customer Service Department
Efficient and knowledgeable customer service department is like icing on the cake. Get the opinion of the current customers of the credit card processor. Also, find out about their experiences with the customer service department. Look for the processor whose,
- Support representatives are knowledgeable and can tackle any kind of issue if arises.
- Call waiting time is minimum
- Support representative should be able to resolve issues in the first call and in shortest time duration.
If you are lucky enough and end up buying a credit card processor or merchant payment processor for your high-risk business that fulfills all your needs and the fee charged is worth every single penny you pay, hold on tight to it and never let it go. If you are happy with the services provided and a fee charged, it would be a good decision to renew the contract with the same provider than starting the process all over again.
How Does the Credit Card Processing Work: A Simple Guide
Credit card transaction is not a new concept. Everyone claims to know the process: swipe the card, hit the button and the transaction is complete in a blink. But do you really know the process? Do you think that it is as simple as it seems? It actually is a much more complex procedure than what you witness. The fact is swiping the card and signing the recipe is the first and the last step of the procedure. In between lays multiple steps that include more than one person working invisibly for the customer to complete that particular transaction.
Most of the customers do not care about the complete process. It may seem unnecessary, it provides important information about the inner workings of the modern commerce. Not only for customers but knowledge about credit card transaction process is tremendously important for small business owners as well, as it is a merchant who has to confront the cost of the payment processor. Let us discuss the working of credit card processing in detail.
Key Players
CARDHOLDER
There are two types of cardholders
1. Who repays full credit card balance?
2. Who pays only a portion of balance and rest accrues interest?
MERCHANT
It is a vendor who sells product or services. The job of a merchant is to accept payment through a card, send the card information to the issuing bank and request payment authorization.
MERCHANT’S BANK
It is also known as acquiring the bank and is responsible for sending an authorization request to the issuing bank through a proper channel followed by communicating the response of the issuing bank to the merchant.
SERVICE PROVIDER
Also known as acquiring processor is a third party entity that works as an arm of the merchant’s bank. It provides service or device that allows the merchant to accept credit card for payment and also sends the credit card details to the credit card network and further sends back payment authorization to the acquiring bank.
CREDIT CARD NETWORK
Also referred as Association member, operates the network to facilitate the credit card payment process, worldwide and administrate interchange fees. Credit card network receives details of credit card payment from the service provider and forwards the request for authorization to the issuing bank. In return, it sends a response of the issuing bank to the service provider. Some of the examples of the credit card network are Visa, MasterCard, and American Express.
ISSUING BANK
Also called the credit card issuer is a financial institution that provides the customer with a credit card, which is involved in the transaction. After receiving the authentication request from credit card network, the issuing bank either approves it or declines it.
Credit Card Transaction Process
Let us understand transaction process in just three steps
STEP 1: AUTHENTICITY
- At the point of sale, a cardholder gives the card to the merchant to swipe the card on POS terminal to make a payment.
- Credit card details are sent to the acquiring bank, which forwards the same to the credit card network
- Credit card network clears the payment and a request is sent to the issuing bank for an authorization.
- Authorization request includes credit card number used for the payment, expiration date, billing address, card security code and the payment amount.
STEP 2: AUTHENTICATION
- When the issuing bank receives the authorization request, it validates the credit card number, checks the availability of the funds in the cardholder’s account, verifies the billing address and validates Card security code (CVV number).
- It is up to the issuing bank whether to approve or deny the request. When they make a decision, it sends back the suitable response through a proper channel (credit card network and acquiring bank).
- Once the merchant receives the authorization, the customer is provided with the receipt at the completion of the sale.
STEP 3: CLEARING AND SETTLEMENT
- In clearing stage, the transactions get the post to the cardholder’s monthly billing statement and in the merchant’s statement.
- The merchant sends all the approved authorizations in a batch to the acquiring bank by EOD.
- For settlement, service provider routes the batched information to the association member, which in turn forwards all the approved transactions to the corresponding issuing bank.
- Then the issuing bank transfers the funds (minus interchange fee, which is shared with the credit card network) within 1-2 days. Then the credit card network pays from the remaining funds to acquiring bank as well as the acquiring processor.
- The merchant account gets credited for the cardholder’s purchases by the acquiring bank (minus merchant discount rate). At this time, the issuing bank posts the transaction information to the cardholder’s account. The cardholder receives the statement and bill is paid off.
Opening a Bail Bonds High Risk Merchant Account Business
Merchant accounts for Bail bonds seem like a Mystery. Many discuss processing plastic card payments, however, it is a riddle to numerous in the business how they do as such securely, and without dread of conclusion. The result is easy: Merchant Stronghold. The bail bonds business is very rigid and tough, not only due to its customers but also due to its status in the processing business. While many bashful lefts from this industry, Merchant Stronghold welcomes it with open arms.
Merchant Account for Bail Bonds
Receiving a Merchant Account and processing of credit card payments for your bail bonds business, it can be very difficult. Numerous Credit Card Processors don’t want to work with Merchant services of bail bonds businesses because of the high-risk environment of the service being provided.
All merchants require the capacity to process plastic card such as credit card payments and debit card payments. While many bail bonds organizations are “Cash only bonds”, this can discontinuation the process for clients, and it can magnify those who are in a hurry to free their loved one from custody.
While plastic card payments leave a company at high risk for deceptive action, Merchant Stronghold has the best safety features to help you battle these issues. And while every fraudulent issue cannot be detected due to the ever-changing fraudster industry, Merchant Stronghold offers you chargeback insurance to help ease these fears.
Bail Bonds Merchant Account Business
In the event that you have a Merchant Account and are fulfilled, that’s great. That is incredible. Be that as it may, you should look at your choices from time to time. The processing business is constantly changing, and not all processors are up to date on the various payment forms that are available today.
From ACH debit charge to iCheck innovation, and BitCoin is in a process by many. However, not everyone agrees. The greater installment techniques you can acknowledge, the better your notoriety and the better you can serve your clients.
Meet Merchant Stronghold
The Merchant bail bonds business is similar to any other, and it depends on the ability to accept payments. With Merchant Stronghold, the application to do such is rapid and simple. And, merchants can see the acceptance in as little as 48 hours. This time period is inconceivable, yet it is an indication of Merchant Stronghold’s demonstrated commitment to its Merchants.
After the printed material is marked, you can be up and running is two or three days. This encourages you, and your clients, better the business Bail bonds involvement. It is something that no customer needs to do, however many winds up confronting a Bail bonds organization sooner or later. It is dependent upon you to make the procedure cordial and smooth, both through client service and payment processing.
If you own a Bail Bonds business and need to process your Credit card payments call Merchant Stronghold today. Merchant Stronghold has many minimal effort answers for your Bail bonds business. We work with many Bail bonds organizations everywhere throughout the United States. Merchant Stronghold will locate a minimal effort Merchant Account Processing solution for you.
Merchant Account for Document Preparation Services Business In USA
We specialize in Document Preparation Merchant Accounts and merchant accounts for document preparation companies. We approve practically every business type, even if you have been turned down for payment processing.With decades of experience, our team is here to help. Even if you have been shut down by your current processor, we have a solution for your particular situation. We’re available to answer any questions and provide ongoing continued support for our valued customers.
What Is A Document Preparation Merchant Account:
A document preparation merchant account facilitates the abilities to process customer payments and fosters cash flow into the business. Customer payments are the life-blood of any business and may include both debt and credit cards, as well as high-risk each processing to electronically charge a client’s checking or savings account. Automatic recurring billing on a pre-set cycle is another function that may add value. Our experienced staff can determine a merchant service solution to meet your needs.
Merchant Stronghold has a thorough understanding of every aspect of the document preparation industry. We are well versed with all the state legislation and restrictions affecting your business. Whether your document preparation company deals with corporation formations, divorces, student loans, trademarks, name changes or power of attorneys, we have a slew of rock-solid banking relationships on standby; each eager to place your account and give your business the room it deserves to grow.
Document Preparation Merchant Services Are High Risk
The
How to Get the Document Ready for a Merchant Account?
The first step is to apply for a high-risk merchant account with a high-risk merchant service provider. Reason being, document preparation merchant service is a high-risk industry. This categorization is the reason why you need to find a high-risk merchant service provider, guidelines of which allows accepting documentation preparation companies like Merchant Stronghold.
Copy of the following information must be included in your application when applying for the merchant account:
- Owner’s ID
- Social security number of the owner
- Voided business check
- Last three months credit card processing statements (if applicable)
When you apply for a merchant account (which can be done online), a team of credit card processors underwriting will review your application and if approved. Hence, you will be able to accept debit and credit card payments.
CONCLUSION
Simply complete our online application form. In addition, our well-qualified team will help you with the document preparation and board you within 48 hours. At Merchant Stronghold. We make sure to provide the best services at a very reasonable price. A happy customer is our main goal. Our team works 24*7, 365 days to satisfy our customers.
