How does a credit or debit card transaction take place? What is the process flow?

Although technically, the payment process is fairly complex at the protocol level, conceptually it's fairly straight forward and can be described as per the following steps:

1. Purchaser places order on Merchant website.
2. At checkout Merchant systems securely transfers order information to the PortalUniverse Payment gateway over the Internet via using a secured encrypted messaging protocol.
3. Our systems receive the order information and present a secured payment page to the Purchaser.
4. Purchaser enters card details and submits the information.
5. At this point the Purchaser may be redirected to a page provided by their bank where they are required to enter a PIN if their bank is participating in either Visa or Mastercard's payer authentication schemes, known as VbyV and 3D Secure respectively. In the case of a debit card transaction this step is mandatory.
6. We format the transaction detail appropriately and securely route the transaction authorization request through our payment gateway to the appropriate acquiring bank.
7. The transaction is then routed to the issuing bank (purchaser's bank) to request transaction authorization in real-time.
8. The transaction is authorized or declined by the issuing bank or card association (in the case of Discover, American Express or Diners Card).
9. Our systems returns the response message to the merchant systems.
10. Issuing bank approves transfer of money to acquiring bank. The acquiring bank, in turn, credits one of our accounts.
11. We reconcile weekly and remit funds to the nominated Merchant bank account via electronic wire transfer.

What's involved in the Merchant sign-up process?

The answer to this question is dependant on where the merchant's company is legally incorporated and what services they require.

For example: a South African merchant wishing to process card transactions in ZAR currency only can simply contract via our South African office.

On the other hand merchants wishing to process in multiple currencies would need to contract via our international company located on the island of Mauritius and would require a very specific legal structure to be put in place.

In order or determine the best fit for your company please contact us via our online form located here, indicating where you are located, what business you are in and which currencies you need to accept. Upon receipt of the information one of our consultants will be in touch...

How do I connect my systems to the payment gateway?

We offer three integration options.

Option One: Hosted Payment Page Integration
This is the simplest form of integration we offer and is our reccomended / preferred method. Choosing this method greatly simplfies the task of your technical team in terms of getting you up and running and it also has some distinct benefits, such as pre-built MPI integration and using our SSL certificate.

Option Two: Webservices Integration
This is a much more complex form of integration and we do not reccomended this method unless you have access to skilled developers and specifically cannot use our Hosted Payment Page for some reason. Choosing this method requires low level interfacing with both our MPI and Payment Gateway seperately and also requires you to host your own payment page and SSL certificate.

Option Three: Custom Integration
In those cases where neither of the above options are feasible we have the ability to code a custom integration interface. Your system may be inflexible in that it exposes it's own specific payment provider interface. We are well versed in this form of integration and are able to interface into virtually any host system. (e.g. for Air Mauritius we needed to provide and adhere to the Amadeus LightOpen PSP Interface specifications.)

Regardless of the option chosen, once you have signed up with us we will provide your technical team access to our API documentation and will work with them to get you on board.

What is Verified by Visa (VbyV) / Mastercard 3D Securecode (3D Secure) / JCB J/Secure (J/Secure)?

In general, internet based credit card transactions have been classified as 'card-not-present' and 'no signature present'. In many cases, merchants have been vulnerable to on-line shoppers that denied they ever executed the transaction. In such cases of disputes, which are typical for on-line fraud cases, the merchants where unable to prove that the actual cardholder was the person performing the payment transaction via the merchant website.

Verified by Visa (VbyV) is a system used by Visa as an added layer of security for online card transactions. Similar systems are used by both Mastercard and JCB under the names Securecode and J/Secure respectively (both are completely separate from Verified by Visa, although exactly the same protocol is used). "Verified by Visa", "SecureCode" and "J/Secure" are being introduced as a means of shifting responsibility for fraud away from the merchant and also introducing more secure transactions, where the party not implementing the technology in question is held responsible for money lost due to fraud.

A transaction using Verified by Visa / SecureCode / J/Secure will initiate a redirect to the website of the card issuing bank to authorize the transaction either using private personal details kept by the bank, a user-chosen password, or, more securely, a one-time-password. Integrating the above payer authentication technology into the merchant's website shopping system allows them to verify and authenticate the true identity of the shopper in real-time. A Merchant Plug-In (MPI) is required to enable participation in the Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode and JCB J/Secure cardholder authentication programs.

Our Enterprise MPI is a proven authentication solution providing real-time cardholder authentication during the online purchase process. Typically the MPI transaction process flow could be described as follows: The MPI accepts authentication requests from the merchant in the form of a web request or an API call. The MPI then handles all authentication messaging and communication on behalf of the merchant and then transfers control back to the merchant for normal authorization processing. This segregates the Verified by Visa, MasterCard SecureCode and JCB J/Secure process from the existing authorization process and therefore requires minimal changes to the merchant's system. We can even provide managed authentication services to merchants who do not use our Internet payment processing service.

The following diagram serves to illustrate the above process flow:

Results obtained from the MPI process can also be interrogated and merchants may opt for a decision profile to be added to their process flow. Therefore a merchant may choose to only accept transactions where the issuing bank has indicated that the payer authentication process was fully successful. Our statistics show that implementation of the above payer authentication schemes may reduce the risk and liability associated with fraud by as much as 93%.

What is a Chargeback?

A chargeback is a forced refund from a customer's credit card company. It occurs when a cardholder decides to formally dispute a charge on his/her credit card bill, often because of someone fraudulently used that card number. According to credit card associations rules, Internet merchants must accept credit card fraud as part of the normal risk of doing business on the Internet. The amount of credit card fraud highly depends on your business nature.

Recently however the card associations have put forward a new technology solution to reduce chargebacks. These payer authentication schemes strive to eliminate charegbacks by obtaining a PIN known only by the issuing bank and the cardholder. Once authenticated a liability shift occurs away from the merchant towards the issuing bank where the ECI (Electronic Commerce Indicator) values are either 01, 02, 05 or 06. Using our gateway it is possible to configure velocity checks that will only accept such transactions where the liability shift has occured, thereby eliminating the chargeback risk to the merchant.

Do you accept all merchant types?

Yes we do. We can provide services to merchants that fall under the following high-risk business categories:

• Adult Entertainment
• Online Tobacco Sales
• Online Pharmaceutical Resellers of Viagra, Cialis etc
• Online Precious Metals & Gems Sales

Do you accept Online Gaming merchants?

Yes we do.

In fact using our gateway greatly reduces the risk for gaming merchants.

What currencies can be processed by the gateway?

We currently support native processing of the following currencies:

• AED - United Arab Emirates Dirham
• AUD - Australian Dollar
• CAD - Canadian Dollar
• CHF - Swiss Francs
• DKK - Danish Kroner
• EUR - Euro
• GBP - United Kingdom Pounds
• HKD - Hong Kong Dollar
• JPY - Japanese Yen
• KES - Kenyan Shilling
• MGF - Malagasy Franc
• NOK - Norwegian Kroner
• NZD - New Zealand Dollar
• SAR - Saudi Arabian Riyal
• SCR - Seychelles Rupee
• SEK - Swedish Krona
• SGD - Singapore Dollar
• ZAR - South African Rand

What is a Settlement Instrument?

A settlement instrument refers to a form of payment such as cash, credit card, debit card, wire transfer etc.

What Settlement Instruments do you support?

We support a wide range of settlement instruments such as Credit Cards, Debit Cards, On-line Funds Transfer (push), Direct Debit (pull - both paperless and paper based), e-Wallets, Credit Transfer, Pre-paid instruments and Invoice settlement.

The ability to offer purchasers a range of settlement instruments, based on their preference, is a critical element in boosting sales volumes. Certain markets are particularly adverse to specific instruments, the implication being that if only those instruments are offered as payment options sales in that region will suffer.

The connector matrix below illustrates the Credit and Debit cards currently supported:

Brand	Instrument Type	Country	Status
Visa	Credit Card	Worldwide	Live
Mastercard	Credit Card	Worldwide	Live
JCB	Credit Card	Worldwide	In progress
American Express	Credit Card	Europe	Live
Diners Card	Credit Card	Europe	Live
Carte Bleue	Debit Card	France	Live
Carte Bancaire	Debit Card	France	Live
Maestro (UK) Switch	Debit Card	UK	Live
Solo	Debit Card	UK	Live
Visa Electron (local)	Debit Card	Italy	Planned
Postepay	Debit Card	Italy	Planned
Laser	Debit Card	Ireland	In progress
Discover	Debit Card	USA	Planned

The connector matrix below illustrates the various alternative instruments currently supported:

Brand	Instrument Type	Country	Status
Überweisung	Credit Transfer	Germany	Live
Abbuchungsauftrag	Direct Debit (paper based)	Germany	Live
Einzugsermächtigung	Direct Debit (paperless)	Germany	Live
Giropay	Online Transfer	Germany	Live
Sofortüberweisung	Online Transfer	Germany	Live
Rechnung	Invoice	Germany	Live
Vorkasse	Prepayment	Germany	Live
Vorkasse	Wallet	Germany	In progress
Transferia Bancaria	Credit Transfer	Spain	Live
Domiciliacion bancaria	Direct Debit	Spain	Live
A cuenta	Invoice	Spain	Live
Pago adelantado	Prepayment	Spain	Live
Dankort	Direct Debit	Denmark	Planned
Avtale Giro	Direct Debit (paper based)	Norway	Live
Lastschriftverfahren	Direct Debit	Switzerland	Live
Überweisung	Credit Transfer	Switzerland	Live
Overboeking	Credit Transfer	Netherlands	In progress
Machtiging	Direct Debit	Netherlands	In progress
Invoice	Invoice	Netherlands	In progress
ideal	Online Transfer	Netherlands	In progress
Prepayment	Prepayment	Netherlands	In progress
Überweisung	Credit Transfer	Austria	Live
Rechnung	Invoice	Austria	Live
Vorkasse	Prepayment	Austria	Live
Einzugsermächtigungsverfahren	Direct Debit (paper less)	Austria	Live
eps	Online Transfer	Austria	Live
ACH	Direct Debit	USA	Planned
Click&Buy	Wallet	Worldwide	Planned
Click2Pay	Wallet	Worldwide	Planned
ePassporte	Wallet	Worldwide	In progress
moneybookers	Wallet	Worldwide	Live
neteller	Wallet	Worldwide	In progress
uKash	Wallet	Worldwide	Planned
PaySafe	Wallet	Worldwide	Planned
PayPal	Wallet	Worldwide	Live

Do I get my own MID? What is a MID?

A MID or Merchant ID refers to the billing descriptor that will appear on the statement of the cardholder for purchases made online.

Each of our merchants receive their own MID and billing descriptor as this is proven to reduce the potential for chargebacks.

Do I get my own merchant bank account?

The choice is yours. Merchants that opt for their own merchant bank accounts are responsible for their own reconciliations and have access to their bank accounts online.

Merchants that prefer to use our accounts can leverage our weekly reconciliation and net settlement service.

What is the Admin Console?

The Admin Console is our secure online merchant dashboard interface to the payment gateway. Merchants can use the console to view transaction histories, download to Microsoft Excel, process refunds, view reconciliations, perform user & group management functions and draw general Business Intelligence statistics for their profile.

Ongoing development of the Admin Console is a key focus point of our development team and new features are continuously being added to the dashboard.

Do you cater for call center / off-line / mail order type sales?

Absolutely. The Admin Console includes our VPOS (Virtual Point of Sale) technology which may be configured for use by call center / payment processing staff within your operation. Each user may be provided with their own unique username : password combinations for auditing purposes.

Merchants may also leverage our Secure Agent product for increased security in regard to call center / off-line sales. This unique technology allows for VbyV / 3D Secure transactions to be processed by call center / off-line sales staff without the need for expensive IVR technology / prompting the user for their PIN over the phone.

Where is your price list? How much do your services cost?

Due to the specifics of each merchant and the various settlement permutations on offer it is not possible to provide a simple "price list".

Each potential merchant client is consulted with on a case by case basis in order to determine the final solution cost.

Factors however that would influence the solution costs include predicted volumes, clients' specific modifications / processes / interfaces that need to be developed, settlement instruments of choice etc.

Potential client merchants can however expect a solution cost that is based on a once off setup fee and then on an ongoing basis, a transaction fee, a percentage commission of transactions processed, or combination of both.

How secure and stable is your platform?

The PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) was developed as a guideline to help organizations that process card payments prevent credit card fraud, hacking and various other security vulnerabilities and threats. PCI DSS is a multifaceted security standard that includes requirements for security management, policies, procedures, network architecture, software design and other critical protective measures. A company processing, storing, or transmitting payment card data must be PCI DSS compliant or risk losing their ability to process credit card payments. Payment card service providers must validate their compliance periodically via certified PCI DSS Qualified Security Assessors.

Our systems are fully PCI DSS certified and compliant. Rolling audits are periodically performed to ensure continued compliance across all infrastructures and systems.

Our dual data centre deployments ensure full systems redundancy in case of critical systems / data centre failure. Both environments have been performance rated to support in excess of 125 transactions per second, thereby allowing us to process in excess of 450,000 transactions per hour whilst having maintained a systems uptime average in excess of 99.99% for the last three years. Scheduled downtime is always limited to less than 10 minute intervals during off-peak periods.

Most of my clients are not English. What now?

Our hosted payment page includes elegant and sophisticated support for any language. The buyer's locale browser setting is interrogated prior to page load, thus removing the need for any special coding requirements at the merchant system level. Should a setting other than the default language (English) be detected the specified language file is automatically loaded, allowing multi-lingual merchant sales systems to offer a seamless purchase experience to clients in their language of choice.

English, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian and Dutch are supported as standard with the ability for additional languages to be supported through the provision of the appropriate language file.

What about 3rd party systems integration?

We know that payments processed via our payment processing engine cannot exist in isolation. Many merchants require this transactional data to feed other critical systems such as CRM, loyalty card, ERP and corporate accounting / financial systems. Just as we have catered for custom refund processes per merchant, our gateway can be customised to integrate into 3rd party systems as required on a merchant by merchant basis.