UniBul Merchant Services Launches Payment Processing Program for Merchants Selling Calling Cards

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) November 12, 2008 --

Boston, MA - Evaluation of the processing statements of forty merchants selling prepaid calling cards online showed that, as a whole, the group was grossly overcharged by their credit card processing companies. Three quarters of the statements showed the merchants were paying rates higher than 2.55% per transactions. In today’s card processing environment these same merchants should not be paying more than 2.19%. In addition to that, two thirds of the examined statements showed that merchants were paying various service charges, like a monthly minimum processing fee or a customer service fee, in the range $10 - $25. Such fees should not be charged at all. The biggest issue, however, was found in the large volumes of non-qualified transactions. The generally accepted definition of a non-qualified transaction is one that is processed in accordance with the rules established in the Processing Agreement, signed by the merchant and its processing bank, but does not meet the highest standards for card processing and/or complies with some applicable security requirements, but not enough in order to be classified as qualified. The evaluation showed that the average surcharge for non-qualified transactions was 1.05% over the qualified rate. The average volume of non-qualified transactions was 65% of the total card volume the merchants had processed.

To address the issue, UniBul Merchant Services has created a payment processing program tailored specifically to address the unique needs of merchants selling prepaid calling cards. The service provides merchant accounts that are set up with no processing volumes and at very low rates. What is more important, there are no mid-qualified or non-qualified surcharges. All transactions are processed using the pass-through model. This model works by adding the service provider’s mark-up to the interchange rates that are set by Visa and MasterCard. UniBul Merchant Services adds the same mark-up to every transaction it processes. The mark-up is prominently disclosed in the Pricing Agreement that merchants sign before the merchant account application processed is initiated. This full pricing disclosure enables merchants to calculate their processing costs prior to accepting payments.

The processing program for merchants selling prepaid calling cards comes as the second installment in UniBul Merchant Services’ ambitious program that aims to design a unique processing program for ten separate eCommerce merchant types by the third quarter of 2009. Full details of the program can be found at http://www.unibulmerchantservices.com/payment-processing-for-merchants-selling-prepaid-calling-cards.

By launching this program, UniBul Merchant Services is seeking to bring processing costs for merchants selling prepaid calling cards down to acceptable levels and to contribute to a sharper focus on the processes and practices that are necessary to ensure that merchants get the best out of their card processing services.