Our VP of sales was recently interviewed for an ISO & Agent article Smooth talk goes only so far. For long-term success at signing up merchants for card services, sales agents should develop a sound general knowledge of how interchange rates work, ISOs agree. Well-versed agents can quote prices confidently and field retailers’ questions deftly, creating an advantage over competitors, ISOs say. Agents themselves point out that colleagues who fail to fathom interchange cannot even calculate how much pay they would receive. No agent needs to know all of Visa Inc.’s and MasterCard Worldwide’s hundreds of interchange rates, says...

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Theodore Svoronos, Certified E-Commerce Consultant with Group ISO Inc., said First Data's program marks a significant step forward in the payment business's longstanding fraud fight. The technology being used isn't anything new, but the deployment of a composite token/encryption security product on the scale intended by First Data would be groundbreaking, he said.

"All these security products have been around since 2000, 2001 - all these bits and pieces," Svoronos said. "The problem we've been having in this industry is the attrition rate, the low adoption rate, customer drop off and sales going down because [merchants] don't get it. ... By First Data adopting this, they are becoming a leader in this space. They have the wherewithal and financials and ability to do it, and they can cherry pick the best of the best and put it together, and RSA is phenomenal.

"PCI is a wonderful situation and well-needed, but to some point it's still reactionary. I believe in a proactive approach, and this approach First Data is trying is a proactive approach. And those [merchants] that do decide to jump on board this train before it leaves the station will realize the value down the road."

Power to the People

 Inspired by a JCPenny founder, Group ISO prioritizes and empowers agents

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Group ISO's Theodore Svoronos comments in the following Green Sheet article: 

Though e-commerce sales are increasing, 87 percent of merchants surveyed said they will have to fight fraud with the same or less staff in the coming year.

Merchants showed a dramatically increased interest in more sophisticated automation fraud review tools than in previous years.

For each of the past six years, approximately 25 percent of online orders were manually reviewed.

In 2008, merchants accepted a higher percentage of orders, working more aggressively to boost top-line sales. International orders continue to have over three times the fraud risk of orders from the United States and Canada.