Payfac partners keep you PCI compliant
Developing software for a specific market takes more than great coding skills. It takes deep industry knowledge and appreciation for business customers and their day-to-day challenges.
As a successful independent software vendor (ISV), you intuitively understand your customers’ requirements and help them stay in sync with emerging industry trends. Your advanced B2B software solutions help them solve problems and automate menial tasks.
If you’ve tried to add payments to your technology stack, you already know that seamlessly embedding payments takes more than a simple integration. Fortunately, you can partner with payment facilitators (payfacs), the same way that your customers partner with you. As dedicated payment processing experts, payfacs deliver a world of value to ISVs while helping them stay secure, compliant and up to date with payment card industry regulations and best practices.
Leading card brands Visa, Mastercard, Discover, JCB International, American Express and China UnionPay frequently update their guidelines on credit card usage. Visa guidelines alone, published in April 2020, fill an 880-page manual. Recent revisions to Visa’s card acceptance guidelines affect merchants who process transactions in more than one country, accept installment plan payments or operate ATMs and mass transit vehicles. Visa has also revised its policies to enable merchants to deploy contactless-only point of sale devices.
Card brand innovation
All card brand guidelines are designed to minimize risk and standardize operating procedures across the global business community by fostering a convenient, secure, and reliable customer experience. Each brand has evolved over the years from a single-purpose payment card to a multidimensional technology platform that supports real-time authorization and settlement.
Rules are frequently updated by card brands in response to ever-changing global commerce in developed and developing regions regarding debit, credit and other types of payments schemes. Fundamental rules apply to all system participants and specify minimum requirements to protect the security, integrity and interoperability of payment transactions.
American Express, Discover, JCB International, Mastercard and Visa founded the Payment Card Industry Data Security Council in 2006. The global body worked together to establish the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Founding members continue to govern and execute the organization’s work, incorporating the standard into their respective technical requirements and data security compliance programs.
PCI’s Strategic Framework
Lance Johnson, executive director of the PCI Council, described the PCI Council’s mission and strategic framework as follows:
Increase industry participation and knowledge
Evolve security standards and validation
Secure emerging payment channels
Increase standards alignment and consistency
While the council has constantly adapted its standards to mitigate fraud and protect against threats, the four pillars of its strategic framework have stood the test of time, he stated.
“The Council’s mission is the same today as it was when the organization was founded. What has changed is the scope of PCI SSC activities needed to support an increasingly complex and global payments ecosystem,” Johnson said. “The Strategic Framework reaffirms the Council’s mission and extends it to include four strategic pillars that define how PCI SSC achieves this mission now and going forward.”
Payfac protection
Payment facilitators provide a unique way for ISVs to participate in payments enablement while maintaining PCI compliance. Their cost-effective programs and payments-related support drive utility and convenience while offloading risk and staying up to date with payment card trends and acceptance guidelines. In its booklet titled “The Visa Payment Facilitator Model,” Visa described payfacs as a model that benefits all participants in the payment value chain, including issuers, merchants, cardholders and payfacs.
Payfac partners help reduce the cost of onboarding and supporting customers with low processing volumes or specialized needs. They can also broaden the types of business clients you want to attract and provide payments acceptance alternatives to businesses that had previously been limited to accepting cash and checks.
VyaPay, a payfac and PCI Level 1 certified gateway, combines convenience, security and data-driven decisioning with a better payfac solution. VyaPay’s technology suite includes VyaShield, a chargeback automation system that helps merchants recover more revenue by reducing and eliminating chargebacks. Graphical reporting tools and real-time analysis save VyaPay partners time and money.
VyaPay processes a range of in-store and Card Not Present electronic payments, including major card brands, ACH, eChecks, 3D Secure, 3DSv2 and cross-border payment schemes. The company partners with merchant acquirers, ERPs, CRMs, ISVs and VARs to help merchants of all sizes and industries transform the B2B experience. For more details, visit m11.c30.myftpupload.com or contact us directly at 833-4-VYAPAY.
