Literature Review – Stancu Simina – MPI, anul 2

1. Online payment processing

1.1 Online payment processing or E-Payment World Overview

Donal O. Mahony, Michael Perice, Hitesh Tewari(2001) have emphasized the fact that

purchasing goods and services online doesn’t represent a brand new idea. There are attestations

everywhere around us of transaction processes which occur electronically. The appearance of

Internet has definitely eased the achievement of progress. The network of networks has expanded

significantly to today’s global medium. This growth had been determined by the WWW (World

Wide Web) availability technology which gives the opportunity for information to be accessed

from everywhere around the world which also lead to the growth of the business to consumer e-

commerce. A new market has also emerged for individuals that are completing their purchases

through the phone or handheld wireless devices. The Mobile commerce (also called m-

commerce) will rapidly become a broad industry that many payment providers try to cover.

Studies from Humphrey, Pulley, and Vesala (1996) contribute to the definition of e-payments by

saying that the payments are initiated, processed and received electronically. They also show that

the e-payment world constitutes a new concept, above the original payment techniques which

were offered by the banking industry.

Epayment can be viewed as a part of the whole e-commerce transactions which has the element

of electronic payment for buying/selling goods or services which are provided through the mean

of Internet, according to Odlyzko (2003). Odlyzko(2003) also claims that electronic payments

mean more than online transactions on the Internet, as there are various forms of electronic

payments. The technology is expanding and offers many developments as the variety of devices

and processes for electronic payment is on a continuous raise. In the case of e-payments, the

monetary claims are held in digital form.

Kaynak and Harcar(2005) argue that the use of internet banking based operations has been

enhanced by all banks, no matter the type or size. They both mention that online banking has

arrived to the point to become the newest breakthrough expansion in the ever-developing world

of financial services. Because the Internet has increased in a huge proportion and it’s expected to

increase even more, the online payments are expected to increase as well in a rapid pace. One of

the advantages of online banking is represented by the commodity and convenience which is

provided to the individuals by doing business in the comfort of their own homes. The emerge of

the Internet and also the universality of consumers owing personal computers or laptops exhibit

both an opportunity and a challenge within the industry because for a long period of time the

financial institutions have utilized powerful computer networks to process thousands of

transactions compared to nowadays when the customers bank are connected to the internet

through their own personal computers.

The increasing pace through which the epayments are growing making it forcing financial

providers to adapt to the volume augmentation of all the transactions that are processed in all

corners of the world everywhere on the Internet, as Baddeley(2004) is stipulating.

The claim of Huang and Chen (2002) states that together with the popularity of the internet the

explosion of the online payments has also expanded and epayments will develop with a rapid

pace because this method presents many operational advantages and efficiencies. They also

recognize that electronic payment will take the place of the basic cash in the physical world as a

method of payment in the online, virtual world. This happens because by keeping the privacy of

the customer, the electronic payment will be utilized over telecommunications and data

networks. Moreover, the virtual cash is easier and not so expensive to be used compared to the

traditional cash and also if the electronic process is secured, it cannot be counterfeited.

Other studies by Yu, His and Kuo (2002) have converged to the point that online payments have

been risen from the worldwide expansion of the internet.the electronic commerce has

proliferated because of the many benefits that the electronic transfer of transactional information

brings, benefits such us: availability, security, speed, anonymity and openness. These have lead

to the ease and facilitation of many business processes including paying for merchandise,

auctioning, negotiation ordering etc.

There are also authors which contradict the utility of the e-commerce. Chou, et al. (2004)

mentioned that the business of online payments wasn’t as exciting as other have expressed it.

Some of the first innovators either went bankrupt, switched to a new business or gave up the

product. They question which payment methods are more appropriate for the e-business

landscape as they have observed the failure of many e-cash mechanism and the large number of

users of credit cards over the internet.

1.2 Security within the online payment environment

The concern of any new development is security. The emphasis is located on the risk

minimization with each transaction that takes place. A business process is viewed as a set of

logical inputs which logically relate to achieve the business outcome (Gunasekaran et al., 2002).

Every task of the business process must be secured. As the current time is all about information

and data, there is the risk of data fraud, thievery, misappropriation of funds and stealing and

when it comes to money and any other financial information the risk increases dramatically. Raja

(2008) makes a good point that it is highly compulsory and important for the all data regarding

financial information or information about individuals account or credit cards should be

extremely secured and this also establishes the trust and the success for every commercial

institution, the secrecy of information being a critical factor of success.

Zheng et al. (2009) suggest that as online payments are processed through the Internet, a more

secure, stable and efficient program for supporting the payments is required.

Venkataiahgari (2006) explains on E-commerce Technology study that all online payment

settings must present security characteristics such as authentication, authorization and data

confidentiality. The most common protocols used are SSL, TLS and SET which provide secrecy

for online transactions.

Raja (2008) argues that the confidence theories were based on the relationship between the

entities participating to the transactions and the history of any exchanges between them, but as

the online market is widely spread and there are many participants makes the trust difficult to be

assessed due to the feebleness to demonstrate the reliability of the partners. Moreover there isn’t

necessary for a human relationship to be established prior to the transaction which creates an

opportunity for a security threat. Generally speaking, security is composed of subsets of technics

and mechanisms together with various programs whose role is to authenticate the information

source and make sure to keep private the integrity of the information. The main security

procedures comprise: encryption, digital signatures and algorithms.

Jing (2009) recognizes that to be able to prevent stealing of information and in order for only the

rightful owner to see the data, there are several elements which must be checked such as:

integrity of information, validity of information, non-repudiation of information, authenticity of

the transaction status and reliability of the system. The integrity of information refers to the fact

that trade partens can affect the integrity of the information by accidental data entry errors,

duplication of information or difference in information provided. The validity of information

concerns the idea that the online payments will be affected by the validity of information from

customers, companies to the country scale as the validity of the transaction price and period is

mandatory. The Non-repudiation of information focuses on the point that the transfer of the

information must include a reliable source of identification for individuals and companies,

identification which is mad ein original so it cannot be denied. The authenticity of the transaction

status refers to internet transactions which are lead at a large distance and there should be an

understanding that in order for any transaction to be well accomplished there should be trust. The

reliability of the system means that the system should provide security and reliability by making

impossible the computer failures, hardware/software failures or transmission errors.

Murdoch and Anderson (2009) have introduced in their studies the concept of 3D secure protocol

which is branded Verified by Visa and MasterCard Secure Code. The goal of the 3DS is to

permit the merchant to make a connection to see if a customer is the rightful owner of the

specific card number. The system is designed by Visa and MasterCard and it has proven that the

merchants that use the 3Ds have diminished the liability for disputed transactions. With 3Ds the

cardholder must register a password with their bank and then enter the password every time they

are making an online purchase. The authors are criticizing the method of 3DS because they

observe that the 3DS form has no address bar, therefore there is no clue as to the where the form

is originating from and this is against the guideline of the bank which advises clients to avoid

phishing sites. Moreover, another important point is that 3DS conceals the communication of the

merchant, acquirer, issuer and payment scheme but it does not cover the way in which the

customer verification is done. Because of this, the fraud liability is on customers shoulders.

1.3 Risk Management in Online Processing

Michael Levi (2000) states that the global networks, credit, debit and charge cards can never

avoid the risk of crime entirely. The online payment frauds are emerging in a fast pace in the

organization and it has occur as a big risk for the businesses of nowadays. As the complexity of

business increases and companies manage to endure competitive in the global network, many

systems are open to error for manipulation from the employees, by not having a good fraud

internal checking system leading to many occasions for critical loss.

The well known AllCharge(http://www.newgenpay.com) payment services provider expresses

the importance of fraud prevention as the merchant is the one that pays the costs of the products

which are not accounted for and the fines for the credit card industry. Based on this, the

following innovative fraud prevention implementations are required: Address Verification

System, white list of customers, blacklisting of customers, filtration of customers by monitoring

their activity, IPs, credit cards and also filters by IP, BIP compared to the data declared by the

user.

Ward (2010) in its recent report Strategies for Reducing the Risk of eCommerce Fraud sustains

that one of the responsibilities of any business in the online environment which relates to fraud

control is to be in line with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI –DSS). The

latter mentioned comprises a set of requirements made by the card networks which are set to

keep private the personal information of the customer. It represents and expensive and diligent

process but it must be done by all enterprises that store credit card information and they need to

certify that they meet the PCI standards, standards that refer to the way in which information is

stored, used and managed by a business.

Virtue (2009) discusses the division of the PCI standards into six main goals as follows: build

and keep a secure network; keep private cardholder data; support an exposure management

program; integrate strong risk measures; monitor on a regular basis and test networks; keep a

security policy.

Money Laundering is another issue that arises in the environment of online processing being

defined as the act that makes illegal obtained funds to appear as legit.

Tools for preventing Fraud comprise programs for fraud management that use the features which

will be explained further on. Automated transaction risk scoring is a function that makes the

difference between a regular purchase behavior and a risky one by assigning different scores for

each transaction. Another important function is the real-time categorizing and resolution which

deals with placing different types of transaction to different categories for further analysis. Risk

management should also be applied post-purchase, as the fraud management doesn’t end when

the purchase attempt ends. Older transactions belonging to a customer can provide a historic

analysis for deciding patterns and understand better the trending over a period of time. Further

on, the parameters which are chosen to establish and trigger the risk rules should always be

monitored and re-checked as the industry changes, patterns change and parameters need to be

adjusted in time to reflect a good risk management.

The CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, Warrant Buffet states that: “In the end, nobody that’s ever

taken good care of the customer has ever lost; I mean that is the name of the game”. So called

industry enemies, chargebacks represents amounts debited by the bank against the merchant

account due to sever reasons such as : errors in the transaction,, the customer doesn’t recognize

the purchase, the customer has paid for the transaction but the service/good hasn’t been

delivered, stolen card and other fraud situations. Hadden (2010) mentions that the contact with

the customer who is disputing the transaction represents an important point in the solving process

as it includes the proof and documentation up-front so that it can accumulate all required

information. The merchant can dispute the transaction if he has all the necessary proves to show

that the transaction has taken place. The transaction disputing can be a lengthy process and it can

take up to 6 months. He mentioned that in order to reduce chargebacks and avoid them from

happening, the folliwng measures are required:

- Analyse customer history and if fraudulent customer is seen at one transaction, consider

refunding all the others to prevent any future chargebacks and fraud

- Create whitelisting/blacklisting in order to prevent risky customers from purchasing on

the website and create a whitelist for so called vip customers/returning customers

- Keep purchase documents at all times

- Check every customer (call centre team) for all orders

- Implement technical features that can trigger alarm system for fraud by using a certain

logic established by the merchant

1.4 Online Payment Methods

A research performed on international market by Ystats in 2010 has found valuable discoveries

as to the preferred payment methods of consumers. In the US, Credit Card won with 67% as the

most used method for online payments, followed by debit cards with 36%. In Germany, it was

found that men use credit cards for 40% of their purchases and women still prefer more the

traditional direct debit method. In China, 43% pf the individuals prefer money transfers as

payment method.

The same research (December, 2009) shows that the most common payment methods are credit

card, debit card, Paypal,, bank transfer, pre-paid card or phone mobiles.

There are many types of payment processing methods. Most of the time, customers are choosing

the credit cards as this is the most easiest one to use and also almost everybody has a credit card

nowadays.

1.4.1 Online Credit Card Payment System

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(2006) inserts the idea that credit

Cards are largely spread in the online payment methods. At the beginning, there was not a big

adaptation for credit cards to online payments but in time, security properties have been added to

increase the protection of transactions. The difference between offline and online transactions

consists in the fact that online the merchant does not have a signed confirmation from the

customer, either any copy of the card, only the information that is stated on the card and this

leads to a difficulty in managing the authorization of purchases, but technology made it possible

by implementing features to properly authorize transactions. As an advantage of utilizing credit

cards is the ease with which it can be obtained as the process is simple and there is no specific

hardware or software is necessary. Credit Cards method is also widely spread because the

process of completing a purchase is quick and convenient, especially if individuals have at least a

small knowledge with online transactions.

Chakravorti (2006) explains that users find credit cards comfortable for purchases online and the

percentage rounds up to thirty – forty percent for these types of consumers, also called

convenient consumers. An important note is that merchants also gain benefits from credit card

processing, and they could occur loses against other merchants if they wouldn’t use credit cards.

The settlement for funds for credit card payments is wired to the merchant within 48 hours but it

can also take up to one or two weeks.

A secured credit card represents the cards which is enrolled in a 3DS program and is guaranteed

by a bank account or deposit made by the applicant.

Other types of cards include pre-paid cards, gift cards, debit cards which are also used in the

online purchasing environment but in a less proportion than credit cards. The difference between

a debit and a credit card is that the amount is debited from the bank or investment account when

paying for purchases and the balance cannot be negative therefore the customer cannot spend the

money he doesn’t have.

1.4.2 Electronic Check System

Another common payment method is the check for people who have checking accounts and the

amount can be debited from their account.

Safecharge(http://www.safecharge.com/), well known payment service provider explains the

importance of EFT, the system in which funds can be transferred from a bank account to another

without the need of a paper check. The network through which transactions are processed is the

Automated Clearing House and the funds are being transferred in less than a day. The difference

between credit cards and checking accounts is that for a check to be cleared, 7 working days

(sometimes less, sometimes more) and merchants prefer to wait the days for a check to clear and

only afterwards they deliver the product/service which is inconvenient from the customer point

of view as they want the product/services to be offered to them immediately upon the transaction

completion. Moreover, a check can return after 7 working days or more due to several reasons

such as: Insufficient funds (the most common return reasons in which the customer is failing to

maintain a balance which can cover for the amount deposited); contact payer/payee; customer

advised not to authorize, bank refuses reason of denial, invalid account number, refer to maker.

Furthermore, in the report ”Emergence of payment systems in the age of electronic commerce:

the state of art”, it is explained how the electronic checks refers to the needs of the thousands of

business that replace the traditional papercheck with an e-check. In the e-check method, the

holder of the account issues an electronic file which includes all the necessary info: name of the

bank, the payer account number, name of the payee and the sum of the checks.

As advantages for this method, the following can be mentioned:

- They are less expensive than credit cards

- The transaction process is done in a faster way than the traditional paper check

- Customers don’t need to reveal continuously their account information

- Larger amounts can be processed than for credit cards

1.4.3 Mediating Services

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development(2006) mention the mediating

services which refer to the above mentioned methods of payment, but an extra layer/face is

added to them as customers need to register for an account by providing their information for the

bank account or credit card. On the market, the know payment instruments as mediating devices

are: MoneyBookers, Paypal, AlertPay for which customers can use directly their Credit cards or

they can create an account with MB or PayPal and they can fund it for latter use of funds.

The mediating services benefit from the already existing network of payment and it allows for

online auctions or customer-to-customer transfer with no need from the seller part to register as a

merchant. In terms of ease to obtain, the user must create his own account within the payment

option desired but for funding his account, the process goes smoothly as he can use existing

credit cards. The main advantage belongs for sellers as they do not need to apply for a merchant

account, advantage that explains the success of PayPal.

As opposed to debit or credit cards, the financial data of the customer will remain at the payment

provider and will not be provided further on to each seller.

1.4.4 Mobile payment

A less used payment type is the payment through phones which is currently expanding at a fast

rate. The payments are made through a wireless device via a bank account or via the telhpone

bill. An example is Daopay who charges the phone bill, this being an expensive account.

Kim, Mirusmonov and Lee(2009) argues that as the technology advances, and mobile phones

have a deep effect in individual lives, the payment through mobile, also called m-payment has

materialized and it has give the possibility to users to pay no matter where they are. The use of

this kind of payment method is easy for the late adopters and is also influenced by the individual

openness to innovativeness which can be seen to late adopters because they show interest in

technology and are more assertive by using m-payment to fulfill their needs.

1.5 Currency

The currency of the desired accounts depends on the geographic market targeted. Usually, the

same bank can offer both a USD and Euro account in case the targeted market is internationally

spread around the globe. An USD account can also be used to process in countries in which the

currency is different than the USD, case in which a foreign exchange fee will be applied by the

credit card issuing bank. Taking this into consideration, it must be mentioned that the customers

can be overcharged if the foreign exchange fee applied by the issuing bank is higher than the

foreign exchange market fee. A discount offered to the customers is a good idea to prevent

further complaints. Also a notification email which explains the higher charge is highly

recommended.

1.6 Challenges in the E-payment world

Wonglimpiyarat(2007) communicates that a decisive factor in the e-payment world for meeting

the challenges is played by the government as there is some governments from various countries

encounter the fear of money laundering because the transaction processing has a digital form.

The government is influential by bringing in useful market mechanisms by firstly dispersing the

promotion on a smaller scale. Wonglimpiyarat(2005); Lee, et al.(2203), Argy and Bollen(1999)

have shown as example the case in Australia and Czech Republic where the card processing has

been introduced firstly to the medical, educational and transport system and only after the latter

have proven to be successful, the implementation has enlarged to other areas and the industry of

financial service has gain territory. Wonglimpiyarat(2005) and Alder(2002) sustain another

example of Korea, Singapore and Honk Kong where the government has shown a lot of incentive

to open up to the epayment processing.

Wonglimpiyarat(2005 has also noted the challenge of the non –responsiveness of some

customers to the new means of payment transacting. From this point of view, the technology

doesn’t represent a problem, but there are banks or investors who do not want to take the risk to

invest in upgrading various devices as the market acceptance might not offer them the desired

results.

Raja(2008) acknowledges that a challenge which needs to be overcome is represented by the

technical problems which might occur, because every new development, once it is revealed to

the end user, it faces many hurdles. There is the time that takes for a customer to be accustomed

to the product and as the epayment is quite a new concept, people need time to adjust to it.

Technical difficulties also refer to the structure of the epayment system which is exposed to

failures unless well managed. In the occurrence of cases in which by a technical arisen issue, an

individual is extra charged for his purchase, or he is paying for a service/product and the

service/product is not delivered, the payment system which is in place must be re-tested and all

the flaws fixed. Customer loyalty represents an important factor and any technical difficulty will

only cause losses for the business.

As cultural issues, there is the problem of some people who still enjoy doing business in the

traditional way and they like to have physical documents or money. Their conception of making

business relies on dealing with business physically rather than virtually.

Based on Heinemann and Schwarzl(2010), when the internet is used as a method for selling and

buying goods, there are both advantages and disadvantages:

Advantages:

- Global presence

- Direct ordering

- Acquisition of customer data

- Marketing

Disadvantages

- High technical complexity

- Slow Return on Investment

- Competition with vendors from other areas

- Dependence on search engines

1.7 Schematic explanation of payment processing network flow

The payment processing model is composed of entities, processes and services which are

explained in the following lines.

Individuals: Merchants (the business that provides the goods and services for selling) and the

Customer (the holder of the payment method account, the one that will purchase the goods or

services)

Institutions: Customer Issuing Bank (the bank that issues the credit card to the customer);

Acquiring Bank (the institutions that issues the merchant account through which the transactions

will be processed); Processor: a financial institution or a bank that will process transaction and

will wire funds to the merchant

Processors and Services: here are included the three main features: authorization – the process in

which the customer data is verified for a positive balance and an active account; settlements –

wiring funds into the merchant accounts after the authorized transactions have been processed

and payment processing service – the payment gateway which links merchants, customers or

banks within the process of online transacting.

The steps engaged within the process of payment transacting involve the below flow:

Customer enters credit card data after choosing the desired product/service

Customer information is received by the merchant website

The merchant is transmitting the customer data to the payment services provider

The payment services provider is sending the information to the bank that will process

the transaction

The processor will divert further on the info to the customer issuing bank.

The issuing bank will send the message Approved or Declined to the processor

Processor informs the payment services provider

The payment services provider routes the result to the merchant

The merchant approves or declines the purchase

The customer is notified on screen of the result of his purchase

1.8 Online Merchant Account

1.8.1 Overview

According to Manitoba E-Future Centre (http://www.e-future.ca/manitoba), the merchant

account is referring to the standard merchant credit card account that accepts orders online. As

there is a high risk involving online purchases, the bank requires merchant to use accounts that

are approved for online processing.

Applying for a merchant account requires many documentation as the bank will ask for

statements for the last 6 months and if the previous data shows high chargeback ratio, or refund

ratio or any other reason which can make it reluctant to give the account, the account will not be

approved. If the company is a new company, then a business plan should be presented in order to

obtain the merchant account.

Another important factor is represented by the industry in which the account is desired to be

obtained as there are high risk industries for which many banks deny merchant accounts such as

gambling in US, replica, MP3 downloads, pharmacy – controlled substances.

Tseng(2005) discloses that for businesses that rely their commerce electronically, third parties

are required for accomplishing successfully their activities as many companies which are trading

through the internet implement within their online stores a payment services which is provided

by a third party. The author proves that the use of these modular business elements which are

provided by various service providers has offer an ease to businesses when sharing information

and it helps to coordinate the tasks between the organization participants.

Woloshin and Shirey(2002) describe that the method of obtaining a merchant account consists in

providing the link of the company to an online merchant application whereas the merchant

completes all the necessary details of the online application forms and submits the application to

the merchant services provider together with the requested documents. The process continues by

going through an auto – approval system maintained by the services provider which will decide

if the applied data will be approved or not and the process which continued by further

researching the documents provided.

The application varies from bank to bank but it usually comprises a business information form, a

business category description, checking account information and a merchant agreement. Upon

approval of the merchant account, the agreement will be signed and a fee schedule review

together with an acceptance form will be provided to the merchant.

1.8.2 Importance and Internationalization of the Internet Merchant Account

One of the top providers of internet merchant accounts, Merchant Express

(http://www.merchantexpress.com), brings up the belief that every business that accepts

electronic payments on their website, will need an Internet Merchant account for processing the

volume of transactions going through. The Merchant account will give the opportunity to the

customer for completing their purchases online and pay directly on the merchant website by

entering their credit card information or other information depending on the chosen payment

method for the purchase. As a clear benefit is the fact that merchant will accept the orders by

credit card without requiring customer to mail or phone their orders.

One the merchant will agree to processing credit cards on the world wide web, the transactions

will be processed in real time which means that once the customer finishes his purchases and the

order is approved, the transaction is actually processed and completed. The processing will be

done via an Internet payment gateway which allows real time processing.

For the business that are ran brick-and-mortar type, but there is a need to develop to online

orders, the business needs to acquire a merchant account as there are many rules and regulations

which needs to be taken into considerations otherwise the account used might be shut down.

The ideal way of working is with a payment services provider that has already experience in the

field and can assist with the issues of online payment processing.

The importance of the merchant account is also explained by the fact that for the merchants that

have daily transactions in a large volume, over the internet this can be done instantly taking less

time than actually visiting the bank physically every day.

Further on, as the current century is a century of individuals who are leading busy lives, a

merchant account is mandatory for bringing an upgrade in the standards of people.

As to regards of the internationalization part of the e business, the business may have a registered

office locally in a certain country but the internet payment system is operating internationally,

being spread all over the world. The borders have been crossed and there are no limits

concerning country limitations from the point of view of a merchant account and of the internet

service provider. There is no relevance in the individual country or the country of the merchant,

as even the countries are different, the payment process will still be running successfully. In

other words, it has become a global phenomenon.

1.8.3. Elements for choosing the right payment services provider

The blog at http://www.positiveartciles.com/blog remarks that the most important considerations

that should be assessed when applying for merchant accounts are:

- cost and fees: This represents a decisive element which must be taken into consideration as a

provider that offers low fees can hide some other fees which will be applied later on and the

agreement will reach to be more expensive than an average costing merchant account.

- customer an technical support: In emergency situations such as technical failures, there is

highly necessary to be able to reach the merchant service provider and to be able to expect fast

results. This can be accomplished by analyzing the hours the service covers, if there is a toll free

number provided and the speed and efficiency to which they answer to customer enquiries.

- responsive to your needs. The merchant account must be chosen depending on the industry on

which the business is activating, if it’s international or local.

- reserves: Each payment processer keeps reserves usually 10% for 180 days but there are also

payment providers that can offer a no reserve policy if the merchant can prove the risk for fraud

and chargebacks is limited.

Pearson Education (2004) in the paper “E-commerce” mentions that the features of business to

business payment systems are explained as follows:

“Credit verification and guarantee – provides an assessment of creditworthiness and payment

gurantee; escrow service – makes sure that the obligations will be met by both sides;

nonrepudiation – helps assure that the purchases are not reversible as parties that are unknown to

each other can trade with assertiveness; funds collection for seller – deals with settlement of

funds and wire of settlements; financing – manages payment delay to buyers in return of a fee;

integration with other business documents – implements purchase orders, invoices, shipping

documents and payments; fraud detection – ensures sellers in helping them trade more securely;

dispute handling – providing measure for fraud prevention; integration to back-end corporate

systems – provides implementation of payment systems within shipping, accounting, reporting

and other systems; online bill presentment – have the capability to generate online bills; multiple

payment options – makes sure that the customers can choose from a variety of payment option:

credit card, debit card, ach check, electronic funds transfer or other means.

1.8.3 High Risk Merchant Accounts

The most difficult to be obtained accounts are the ones in the high risk industries such as:

gambling, replica, pharmacy and adult, e-cigarretes, casinos, travel etc because these merchant

account provides are encountering many problems because the banks are not usually providing

this specimen of accounts due to high occurrence of fraud and charge-backs. As another side, it

is considered that these industries are usually maximizing the businesses revenues as they are the

most wanted but also most pretentious.

The payment services provider which will be able to provide a replica type of account is usually

prepared to deal with high risk situations and he can also be able to guarantee secure credit card

processing and an increased level in fraud preservation.

Another high risk industry is the pharmacy industry and it’s already generally known that the

pharmacy exchange is highly expensive this being a reason for which businesses prefer to sell

them online. As there is a high risk of fraud, there are very few processors who are giving this

type of account.

References:

1. Donal O.Mahony, Michael Peirce, Hitesh Tewari(2001): Electronic Payment Systems for

E-Commerce Second Edition

2. David B. Humphrey, Lawrence B. Pulley, and Jukka M. Vesala ( November1996),

"Cash,Paper, and Electronic Payments: A Cross-Country Analysis," pp. 914-939

3. Odlyzko (2003) Odlyzko, A. M., The Case Against Micropayments”, in R. N. Wright

(Ed.),Financial Cryptography: Seventh International Conference (FC 2003),

Guadeloupe,French West Indies, January 27-30, Lecture Notes in Computer Science

(Vol. 2742, pp.77-83), 2003

4. Erdener Kaynak and Talha D. Harcar (2005): Consumer attitudes towards online

banking: anew strategic marketing medium for commercial banks, Int. J. Technology

Marketing, Vol. 1, No. 1, 2005"

5. Michelle Baddeley (2004): Using E-cash in the new economy: an economic analysis of

micropayment system vol.5, no.4, 2004

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