Credit Card Payment Industry

To process credit cards, you will be interacting with these types of companies:

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Banks: Two types of banks exist depending on the type of funds that they hold: merchants and customers.

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Acquiring (merchant) banks: These banks offer accounts to businesses that accept credit card payments. Before you can accept payments, you must have a merchant bank account from an acquiring bank. Acquiring banks collect fees for each transaction.

Your acquiring bank decides which payment processor you must use. You need to obtain the name of your processor from your bank before you start accepting customer orders.

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Issuing (consumer) banks: These banks underwrite lines of credit for cardholders, provide monthly statements, and collect payments from cardholders. To determine who your account provider is, contact your merchant bank.

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Payment Processors: A payment processor is an organization to which CyberSource sends all authorizations, captures, and credits requests. The payment processor obtains the authorization from the customer's card-issuing bank and returns the authorization to CyberSource, which forwards the authorization to you. Your acquiring bank decides which payment processor you must use. You need this information before you start accepting customer orders. The Business Center supports the following processors:


Chase Paymentech Solutions	FDMS South
FDC Compass	GPN GPN is the CyberSource name for Global Payments, Inc.’s East processing platform.
FDC Nashville Global	RBS WorldPay Atlanta
FDMS Nashville	TSYS Acquiring Solutions

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Credit Cards Associations: Credit card associations, such as Visa and MasterCard, manage communications between acquiring banks and issuing banks. They also develop industry standards and establish fees for acquiring banks. The Business Center supports these card types:


Visa®	Discover®
MasterCard®	JCB
American Express®	Carte Blanche
Diners Club®


	Card types also include Visa- and MasterCard-branded prepaid cards and debit cards, which are processed as credit cards.

For more information, see “Cards and Payment Methods” in the Credit Card Services User Guide.