Ways For Credit Cards Processing To Work
Anyway you break it down, there are only four ways for credit card processing to occur. The first is by manually calling it in. You take the customer’s credit card, call your acquiring bank, follow some prompts, and enter in the customer’s credit card number. The second way is known as imprint, but the slang term is a knuckle-buster. The card is placed beneath some carbon-copy paper which is then pressed onto the credit card by moving the slider back and forth, thus imprinting the information onto the carbon-copy paper. The paper is then mailed in to the acquiring bank which processes the transaction. The third, and most common, way to process credit cards is through a point-of-sale (or POS) terminal. This is an electronic device that is either connected to a phone line or the Internet, and it connects to the acquirer for near instant approval. These machines usually batch at the end of the day. The fourth and final way to process a credit card transaction is through a virtual terminal. This is how all Internet transactions are completed. When you are on a website and entering in your credit card information to make an online purchase, that is a virtual terminal.
