Merchant Account Reserve: What It Is and How Rolling Reserves Affect Cash Flow

When someone swipes a card, an intricate sequence of steps is instantly carried out. For the payment to go through, it must be authorized, captured, and settled.  Payment authorization is a critical step in the transaction process. It is essentially where the issuer says that the transaction can go through. If there are insufficient funds, […]

According to one study, around 11% of e-commerce transactions fail each year. Meanwhile, chargebacks annually cost merchants around $117.47 billion.  While your payment processing tools might be out of sight and out of mind, they can have a real impact on your company’s bottom line. High decline rates, chargebacks, customer abandonment, and fraud can add […]

Authorized push payment fraud (APP) is rapidly growing as a problem, but many businesses remain unprotected. This insidious type of fraud involves a bad actor pretending to be a legitimate vendor, employee, or business partner. Then, the bad actor uses this false identity to trick businesses into sending a payment to them. As a business, […]

While chargebacks are an unavoidable part of operating a business, you don’t have to just live with them. By fighting chargeback disputes, you can recuperate the cost of the transaction.  To learn how to win a chargeback as a merchant, you need to understand chargeback reason codes and the best evidence for fighting each code. […]

Years ago, businesses might wait weeks for a check to be mailed and received from a customer. Even after you dropped the check off at the bank, it could be days until it cleared your account. Today, real-time payments (RTP) have made multi-day waits a thing of the past. These instantaneous payments can transfer into […]

Merchant account holds can immediately disrupt your cash flow and make funding your day-to-day operations difficult. Even when the hold is only for a single transaction, the documentation, reviews, and process can be onerous and inconvenient.  When you are notified about a merchant credit hold for review, it pays to be proactive. Respond to any […]