Credit Card Processing: A Primer

A reputable service bureau also will be certified by Visa’s Cardholder Information Security Program. And it should provide ways to identify and safeguard against credit card fraud.

Types of Processors

There are four types of players in this field:

• Banks. All credit card merchant accounts are issued by a sponsoring bank. This is where the funds from each bank card (Visa and MasterCard) transaction initially are deposited before being transferred to your bank account. Some credit card processors simply are a division of the sponsoring bank. As such, they’re part of the bureaucratic banking world and may operate in a slow and deliberate fashion.