Upcoming Cardinal Web Events:
Improvements to Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode
Thursday, March 27th at 2:00 pm EST - Register Now
Make PrePaid More Convenient & Profitable: A Mobile Web Event
Thursday, April 10th at 2PM EST - Register Now
Announcements:
It’s Merchant March Madness at Cardinal!
Find out how you can win right along with the Final Four today!
We’d love to meet you, contact Cardinal if you’ll be at the following
Industry Events:
Airline Payment Summit
April 9-10 2008
Toronto, Canada
NACHA Payments 2008
May 18-21, 2008
Las Vegas
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March 2008 - Quarterly Newsletter
Payer Authentication experienced significant growth with a 150% increase in enrollment rates by both the consumer and their bank from 2007 over 2006.
The Year in Review: Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode
As online retail sales continued to outpace overall retail sales in the US last year1, this year's online retail projection is again strong, and as transaction volume increases, so will fraud, and the costs associated with fraud screening.
So even with the growth of alternative payment brands, we still recognize that typically over 70% of your transactions are with traditional credit cards, Visa and MasterCard. It’s no surprise then that the Visa and MasterCard payer authentication initiatives Verified by Visa (VbV) and MasterCard SecureCode (SecureCode) were once again named the “most sought after online fraud screening tool in 2008” 2.
Why aren’t we surprised? It’s because the VbV and SecureCode programs offer the best protection against fraud and can also offset the rising costs of fraud screening.
In October 2007, MasterCard announced that they, like Visa, would now offer global chargeback protection regardless of cardholder participation. This extended merchant benefit has helped drive adoption increases for merchants, and we are seeing similar increase from consumers desiring additional online security.
Millions of consumers demonstrate brand loyalty to VbV and SecureCode enabled sites, returning and, on average, spending more than their non-enrolled card-carrying counterparts. The average Verified by Visa transaction is $172, compared to a non-enrolled transaction at $106.3 In our August edition, we coined the term “interchange creep” to define the increase in interchange you are paying when your Customers use rewards cards. When consumers shop on your site with rewards cards, it costs you $.10 more on every one hundred dollars you sell when you aren’t using authentication.4 As forecasted, growth of rewards cards continues into 2008 and you will still pay more to accept these debit and credit cards than before.
Meaning, yes, without authentication, you are still paying for your Customers’ rewards.
Additionally, eCommerce businesses that implement authentication typically benefit from:
- Lower transaction costs: Merchants enabling VbV and SecureCode may be eligible for an interchange differential. These merchants typically save an average of 19 basis points per transaction.
- Fraudulent chargeback blocking: Over 95% of transactions receive an interchange differential and/or chargeback blocking.
- Decrease the cost of fraud screening: VbV and SecureCode can offset the cost of manual review by ensuring acceptable orders through authentication.
- Increased risk-free international sales opportunity.
3D-Secure Growth Year-over-Year
In 2007, the total number of transactions sent in for authentication to Visa and MasterCard increased more than 120% year-over-year. From CardinalCommerce’s point-of-view specifically, the number of transactions that originated from a previously enrolled card grew by 150%.
We have seen VbV and SecureCode transactional growth year-over-year, as the graph below demonstrates:
Potential Interchange Savings Growth Year-over-Year
Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode transactions qualify for an average of 19 basis points per $100. Assuming each transactional average was $100 and transactional growth year-over-over, the amount of interchange savings growth for merchants is very significant.
Get your share of interchange savings today!
The benefits of these programs are real and the possible savings to an eCommerce business through interchange, reduced manual review resources, and additional fraud screening efforts are significant. Authentication, as well as alternative payment brands, is gaining in popularity and acceptance, and we, at CardinalCommerce, can help you satisfy this consumer demand.
Find out how easy it is for your business to receive the benefits of the card association’s own authentication programs. The best part is that with Cardinal Centinel® you don’t have to decide.
Enable VbV and SecureCode today and other brands your Customers request tomorrow.
With one integration, you have access to all the ways your Customers want to pay.
Call Cardinal today at 1.877.352.8444 for a custom payment brand evaluation!
- 1 US Department of Commerce.
- 2 Ninth Annual CyberSource Online Fraud Report.
- 3 Visa Global, 2007
- 4 Visa – Select Interchange Rates: April 2007
Cardinal MAX™
Building Businesses through Mobile Commerce
• There are over 250 Million US Wireless Subscribers.
• Over 70% have access to the internet on their cell phone.
-Frost & Sullivan Research
The statistics are clear.
Mobile phones are everywhere, and, like the internet, will change the way we communicate, shop and do business. As the use of personal computers created the
eCommerce space, the prevalence of mobile phones has lead to the development of a unique sales channel known throughout the industry as mobile
commerce.
Mobile Commerce, also known as mCommerce, is the buying and selling of goods and services through wireless devices like PDAs and cellular phones. This “next
generation” eCommerce is rapidly expanding as consumers use texting as a new language, get accustomed to mobile browsers and continue to demand faster and
simpler ways to shop and complete purchases. Between 2002 and 2006 alone, the percentage of young adults and teens using their cell phones for services
beyond simple voice, including ring tones, games, and messaging, rose from less than 50 percent in 2002 to more than 90 percent in 2006.1
This statistic should please marketers in any business:
• Over 70% of all promotional text messages are opened and read.
-Frost & Sullivan Research
Imagine if your business is sending messages to your customer base that were opened at that rate? Now imagine that those messages are also highly targeted,
time-sensitive and reached your customers anytime, anywhere on a personal device?
Welcome to the world of sales opportunity called mCommerce.
By “going mobile” with your business, you have a unique opportunity to connect with your customers with a personalized message in a creative environment.
CardinalCommerce has helped SkyMall, Sony, ESPN Shop, Footlocker, Ritz Camera, and more go mobile quickly and easily.
Of his mobile experience with Cardinal, Peter Tahmin of Ritz Interactive commented,
"(The) Set-up was amazingly simple…We expect big things for mobile commerce in 2008 and appreciate the opportunity to get in early with CardinalCommerce."
CardinalCommerce’s mobile platform, CARDINAL MAX makes it easy for businesses to expand into the mobile channel, and supports both PayPal
Mobile and Google Checkout for Mobile as well as leveraging a “Click to Call” option allowing consumers to connect directly with your sales call
center.
Leveraging PayPal™ and Google Checkout in a mobile environment, allows consumers to complete a purchase with one-click.Leading eCommerce payment brands,
PayPal and Google Checkout have recognized the opportunity and taken their methods to the mobile channel. Along with the power of their brands, PayPal Mobile
and Google Checkout for Mobile bring over 170 million account holders.
Enable your mobile site through CARDINAL MAX and join Cardinal’s First To Know Mobile Customer Connect Network™ geared toward
enhancing consumer relationships and establishing one-to-one marketing between you and your Customers.
Take advantage of this opportunity today or find out more, contact Jaime Howard, Business Development
Manager, Mobile Retail Sales @ 877-352-8444 x155.
1 - Jupiter Research
Partner Plug: Merchant e-Solutions
Formed in 1999 to address the needs of the often overlooked and underserved payment processing needs of community banks and their merchants, Merchant e-Solutions (MeS) is an eCommerce company dedicated to designing offerings specifically for this client base.
CardinalCommerce and Merchant e-Solutions partnered in February 2008 to offer the best eCommerce solutions to merchants with card-not-present needs. MeS has enhanced its proprietary payment solution by integrating Cardinal Centinel, The Universal Merchant Platform. The integration of Cardinal Centinel will give merchants the ability to enable authentication services such as Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode, along with other alternative payment brands such as PayPal, Google Checkout™, Bill Me Later®, and more.
Now merchants who have benefited from the better control of costs, interchange qualification, and service levels of MeS’ e-Commerce Payment Gateway and Virtual Terminal in the past, will receive additional benefits of the authentication and alternative payment brands through Cardinal Centinel® including interchange relief and fraudulent chargeback protection.
Headquartered in Redwood City, with satellite offices in Florida, Spokane, Washington, Southern California, and a number of other locations, Merchant e-Solutions and their executives have an in-depth knowledge of the payments industry with more than 100 years combined experience in a variety of payment-oriented organizations. Cardinal is excited to partner with an organization like Merchant e-Solutions that is committed to helping grow the businesses of the companies processing on their platforms.
Introducing the Latest Addition to Centinel: Ukash
CardinalCommerce welcomes Ukash™ as the latest payment brand addition to Cardinal Centinel, The Universal Merchant Platform. Ukash is a simple and secure way for traditional cash consumers to buy goods and services in the online marketplace.
By leveraging one fast, simple and easy installation of Cardinal Centinel®, merchants can now enable Ukash, the UK-based payment brand quickly and easily. All current and future Centinel Customers can access to the growing base of Ukash customers throughout Europe and around the world with this payment brand which caters to the large number of consumers that prefer to pay in cash or have reservations about submitting their card data online.
Issued in many convenient locations worldwide such as gas stations, grocery stores, and news stands, Ukash vouchers allow the large market of consumers without a debit or credit card, including key groups such as teens, to benefit from eCommerce.
Consumers simply exchange cash for Ukash vouchers and are returned a unique 19-digit number, which they submit to pay for goods and services online. Since Ukash is prepaid, the merchant costs and risks typically associated with chargebacks and repudiation are eliminated.
There is no cost to consumers for Ukash; if a consumer purchases a 50 dollar voucher, the consumer will have 50 dollars to spend online the hundreds of eCommerce merchants that accept Ukash.
"Cardinal is pleased to add Ukash to Cardinal Centinel, our universal merchant platform that enables multiple payment brands through one easy integration, “ said Mike Keresman, CEO, CardinalCommerce. “Ukash is proving to be a major player in the alternative payment space in Europe and we’re happy to provide this new value to our merchants.”
"Ukash is available to an estimated 226M internet users across Europe and in the future will be available around the world. This makes it a perfect fit for Cardinals ambition to provide a full range of payment methods to global internet merchants," explains Mark Chirnside, CEO, Ukash. "Cardinal’s technical team has made it an easy option for merchants using Cardinal Centinel® to switch on payment by Ukash, ensuring that they can reach those consumers that wish to pay online with cash."
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