What is Authorize.Net?
Authorize.Net is the preferred payment gateway
among resellers and merchants for managing payment
transactions using the power and speed of the Internet.
Authorize.Net also provides other business enhancing
products that help merchants manage their transactions.
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What is a payment gateway?
A payment gateway is a complex system of computer
technologies and processes that allow merchants
to electronically submit payment transactions
to the payment processing networks (i.e., the
Credit Card Interchange and the Automated Clearing
House Network) via the Internet. More specifically,
payment gateways provide the necessary Internet
infrastructure that enables merchants to accept
credit card and electronic check payments from
Web sites.
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What does Authorize.Net do?
Authorize.Net facilitates the submission and
routing of credit card and eCheck.Net® payment
transactions on behalf of its client merchants
to the processing networks in real-time—24
hours a day, seven days a week. The Authorize.Net
Payment Gateway supports all types of merchant
business models, including: from Web sites, at
retail (physical locations where payment is presented
directly to the merchant by the customer at the
time of purchase), mail order/telephone order
(MOTO) call and fulfillment centers, and from
wireless devices.
Authorize.Net also provides merchants with business
and transaction enhancing products, such as eCheck.Net®,
Automated Recurring Billing™, and Fraud
Detection Suite™.
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What services and products
does Authorize.Net provide?
Primarily, Authorize.Net provides payment gateway
or IP payment processing services to Web sites,
retail (physical location where payment is presented
directly to the merchant by the customer at the
time of purchase), MOTO, and mobile merchants.
Authorize.Net also provides other value adding
payment processing products that help merchants
enhance transaction processing, streamline their
business, and save time and money. Some of Authorize.Net’s
value-products are: Automated Recurring Billing™ (ARB),
Fraud Detection Suite™, and support for
Verified by Visa and MasterCard® SecureCode™.
In addition, Authorize.Net offers an exclusive
electronic check payment option, eCheck.Net®.
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What type of merchants
use Authorize.Net?
The Authorize.Net Payment Gateway supports all
types of merchant business models, including:
from Web sites, at retail (physical locations
where payment is presented directly to the merchant
by the customer at the time of purchase), mail
order/telephone order (MOTO) call and fulfillment
centers, and from wireless devices for mobile
merchants.
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Where does Authorize.Net
fit in the credit card payments process?
In the credit card payments process, Authorize.Net
sits between the merchant and the payment processing
entity (e.g., FDMS, TSYS Acquiring Solutions
(SM), Global) that does business with the merchant’s
bank. Authorize.Net also has a relationship with
the payment processing entity, which allows Authorize.Net
to pass transaction information on behalf of
the merchant via the Internet (over a proprietary
and secure connection).
A typical Authorize.Net credit card transaction
flows in the following way:
- A credit card transaction is
submitted to the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway
either from a merchant Web site or directly
from a merchant.
- Authorize.Net automatically
passes the transaction to the Acquiring Bank’s
Processor (the payment processor that does
business with the merchant’s bank).
- The Acquiring Bank’s
Processor passes the transaction to the Credit
Card Interchange System (an entity that routes
payment information to the parties involved
in settling a credit card transaction).
- The Credit Card Interchange
System routes the transaction to the appropriate
Credit Card Issuer (the bank or organization
that issued the customer their credit card).
- The Credit Card Issuer approves
or declines the transaction and passes both
the transaction results and the appropriate
funds back through the Credit Card Interchange
System.
- The Credit Card Interchange
System relays the transaction results to the
Acquiring Bank’s Processor.
- The Acquiring Bank’s
Processor relays the transaction results to
Authorize.Net.
- Authorize.Net stores the transaction
results and sends it back to the merchant and
customer.
- The Credit Card Interchange
System also passes the appropriate funds for
the transaction to the Acquiring Bank (the
merchant’s bank).
- The Acquiring Bank passes remaining
funds to the merchant’s bank account.
On average, steps 1-8 take only 3 to 4 seconds!
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What credit cards does
Authorize.Net support?
Authorize.Net supports all major credit cards:
Visa, MasterCard, Discover, American Express,
Japan Credit Bureau (JCB), Diner’s Club.
Authorize.Net also has an exclusive electronic
check solution, eCheck.Net®.
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How secure is submitting transactions over the
Internet?
Submitting transactions over the Internet can
be as secure as providing credit card or check
payments in person. All parties involved with
processing any payment transaction—including
customers, merchants, merchant service providers
or businesses that handle customer payment information,
and payment gateways—should be vigilant
about protecting customer payment information.
For merchants and merchant service providers
that may handle customer payment information,
there are many payments industry security initiatives
and programs in place that are designed to safeguard
customer payment and other sensitive information—programs
with which in many cases they are required to
prove compliance. As you seek merchant service
providers to work with, be sure to find out about
their efforts to meet industry standard security
requirements and practices. A professional organization
will do everything in their capacity to meet
and maintain the highest levels of Internet security—which
is why Authorize.Net is compliant with maintaining
the highest industry security standards.
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Does Authorize.Net store
customer payment information?
For the purpose of risk management and to be
able to process certain types of subsequent transactions
(e.g., recurring billing, refunds), yes, Authorize.Net
will store customer payment information in a
highly secured database for a limited period
of time. However, all sensitive or personally
identifying customer information that is stored
by Authorize.Net is masked in the Merchant Interface
and in merchant reporting. In addition, in order
to maintain compliance with several card association
regulated security compliance programs, internal
access to customer information is highly restricted.
Once customer payment information has been stored
for 120 days (from the date it was originally
received), the Authorize.Net purges the full
information and stores only masked information.
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How secure
is Authorize.Net?
Authorize.Net is uncompromising when it comes
to providing merchants with secure, trustworthy
payment processing services. For receiving and
transmitting customer payment information Authorize.Net
implements the most advanced Internet security
protocols including 128-bit Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL). On top of that, Authorize.Net consistently
employs an extensive number of strong practices,
procedures and industry leading technologies
to maintain tight security for the entire payment
gateway platform. We also maintain compliance
with high quality security programs developed
by the card associations, such as Visa Cardholder
Information Security Program (CISP) and MasterCard
Site Data Protection (SDP); and are continually
investing time and money to maximize the security
surrounding the payment gateway.
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What is Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL)?
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is an Internet protocol
that safeguards electronic communications between
two or more computers. For a communication or
transaction that is transmitted over an “end
to end” SSL connection, the computer initiating
the transmission will open an SSL connection.
This means that when Computer A sends a request
to Computer B to transmit information, Computer
A will include a digital certificate—a
complex authentication tool that is basically
a third-party issued certification that Computer
A is a trustworthy source. Computer B then accepts
the transmission and, in the event that Computer
B has information to return to computer A, the
SSL connection may remain open until the transaction
between the two computers is complete.
Server-side SSL can also be used in the event
that Computer A doesn’t have the necessary
digital certificate or the ability to open an
SSL connection to submit a communication to Computer
B. However, Computer B may have some other means
of authenticating the trustworthiness of Computer
A or other computers that are submitting communication
requests. Any transmissions sent to other computers
by computer B will be transmitted via an SSL
connection to those computers. In this case,
the SSL connection is terminated once Computer
B has completed its transmission.
When transmissions are sent over an SSL connection,
they cannot be intercepted, viewed or modified
by other parties on the Internet. As such, customer
payment information is transmitted securely.
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What does Internet Protocol
(IP) mean?
Internet Protocol (IP) is the method of transmitting
information and communications between computer
systems and networks via the Internet. For the
payments industry, the ability to use IP to transmit
customer payment information directly to the
processing network has revolutionized the way
merchants run business—opening doors to
a wide range of new payments acceptance opportunities,
including from Web sites and wireless devices,
to helping store-front merchants cut costs and
speed up checkout lines.
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What does Authorize.Net
do to protect merchants from fraud?
Authorize.Net recognizes that fraud may well
be the biggest challenge facing our merchants—which
is why helping merchants protect themselves from
fraud is one of our highest priorities. There
are several ways Authorize.Net protects merchants
from fraud:
- Unlike other payment gateways,
Address Verification Service (AVS) and Card
Code Verification (CCV) tools come with our
standard payment gateway accounts—helping
merchants build their fraud protection program
from the ground up.
- Authorize.Net has an established
and dedicated Fraud Management Department,
dedicated to the daily monitoring of merchant
accounts and development of merchant protection
practices and program.
- Based on extensive research
and criteria developed by our dedicated Fraud
Management Department, the Authorize.Net Fraud
Detection Suite (FDS) provides an unrivaled
set of transaction filters and tools that empower
merchants to identify, prevent and manage potentially
fraudulent transactions.
Authorize.Net is continually investing money
and resources into providing merchants with the
tools and information they need to protect themselves
from fraud.
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How do I connect my Web
site to Authorize.Net?
Connecting your Web site to the Authorize.Net
Payment Gateway requires some additional code
and development for your Web site. To do this,
you will need to make arrangements with your
company’s Web developer or a contracted
Web developer. See the Auhthorize.net Connection
Methods page for more information about our
secure connection methods. Your Web developer
may be able to help you choose the connection
method that is right for your business.
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Can Authorize.Net process
my point-of-sale (POS) transactions?
Yes! Retail merchants can harness the power and
speed of the Internet to submit payment transactions,
cutting costs and speeding up checkout lines.
Authorize.Net offers a variety of POS solutions
for all types of retail merchants through our
partner POS solutions providers. In fact, many
of our partner POS solutions providers offer
POS hardware and software that is already integrated
to the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway.
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I want to process transactions
via IP from my retail store, how do I get started?
To process your retail transactions via the Authorize.Net
Payment Gateway, you will need an Authorize.Net
Card Present Payment Gateway account, and a Card
Present merchant bank account (a type of bank
account that allows you to collect proceeds from
retail transactions). To obtain these services,
you can choose one of many of our partner point
of sale (POS) solutions providers.
Many of our partner POS solutions providers offer
POS hardware and software that is already integrated
to the Authorize.Net Payment Gateway. If you
would like more information about what is necessary
to integrate directly to the Authorize.Net Payment
Gateway yourself, please see the Authorize.net Card
Present Implementation Guide.
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I already have an Authorize.Net
Payment Gateway account for processing transactions
online—do I need another one to be able
to process retail transactions using Authorize.Net?
Yes, you will need a separate Authorize.Net Card
Present payment gateway account.
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What is a merchant bank
account?
A merchant bank account is a type of financial
institution or bank account that allows merchants
to collect proceeds from consumer bank account
or credit card payment transactions. A Card Present
(CP) merchant account is used by merchants that
process IP transactions received at a physical
location, where payment is physically presented
to the merchant by the customer at the time of
the transaction. A Card Not Present (CNP) merchant
account is used by merchants that receive payments
electronically or in situations where payment
is not physically presented to the merchant by
the consumer at the time of the transaction.
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What does an Authorize.Net Payment Gateway account
include?
A standard Authorize.Net Payment Gateway account
includes the following:
- Connection Methods – Several
options including AIM, SIM and Card Present.
- Merchant Interface – A
password-protected Web site that allows merchants
to manage transactions, change security and
account settings, and generate reports.
- Virtual Terminal – Included
in the Merchant Interface, the Virtual Terminal
allows merchants to manually key in and submit
transactions easily and quickly.
- Batch Upload – Included
in the Merchant Interface, the Batch Upload
feature allows merchants to upload multiple
transaction at once and facilitates uploads
from a spreadsheet or proprietary business
application.
- Address Verification Service
(AVS) – A fraud prevention tool that
allows merchants to filter transactions that
are submitted with billing addresses that do
not match the cardholder’s billing address
on file at the card issuing bank.
- Card Code Verification (CCV) – A
fraud prevention tool that allows merchants
to filter transactions that are submitted with
a card code that does not match the cardholder’s
card code on file at the issuing bank.
- Free Customer Support – Authorize.Net
provides live technical and account support
seven days a week, as well as access to online
documentation and user guides.
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What is the Merchant
Interface?
The Merchant Interface is a password-protected
Authorize.Net Web site that allows merchants
to manage transactions, change security and account
settings, generate reports, and sign up for value-adding
products.
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What is the Virtual Terminal?
The Virtual Terminal is a feature of the Merchant
Interface that allows merchants to manually key
in and submit transactions easily and quickly.
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What is Batch Upload?
Batch Upload is a feature of the Merchant Interface
that allows merchants to upload multiple transactions
at a time from a spreadsheet or proprietary business
application.
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What is eCheck.Net®?
How do I sign up for it?
Authorize.Net’s exclusive electronic check
payment solution. eCheck.Net® allows merchants
to post charge and refund transactions directly
to a customer’s bank account from their
Web site. For merchants already processing credit
card transactions using Authorize.Net, using
eCheck.Net is easy. Authorize.Net provides combined
transaction management, reporting and customer
support.
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What is Automated Recurring
Billing™ (ARB)?
ARB is an Authorize.Net value-add product that
allows Web and MOTO merchants to create a recurring
billing schedule or “subscription” for
the purchase of goods or services. Merchants
enter transactions and customer billing information,
specify a billing amount and billing interval
and ARB does the rest—automatically generating
subsequent transactions for the duration of the
subscription.
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What is Fraud Detection
Suite™ (FDS)?
FDS is a powerful, rules-based set of transaction
filters and Internet Protocol (IP) address tools
designed specifically to help Web merchants identify,
manage and prevent costly fraudulent transactions.
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What processors does Authorize.Net
support?
Authorize.Net has a relationship with CardSystems
Solutions, Concord EFSnet, First Data Merchant
Services (Omaha and Nashville processing platforms),
Global Payments, RBS Lynk, Nova Information Systems,
Paymentech (Tampa processing platform), and TSYS
Acquiring Solutions (SM).
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