UniBul Merchant Services Upgrades Its Virtual Terminal Merchant Account

March 7, 2011 - PRLog -- Merchants often seem to equate virtual terminals with payment gateways. Moreover, many small businesses still accept credit card payments by phone or in the mail and then ask for a merchant account that is based on a point-of-sale terminal. They would key-enter transaction information into the machine, they explain. The virtual terminal is what these merchants need and UniBul Merchant Services has just made an upgrade of it service.

What is Virtual Terminal?

Virtual terminal is an online tool that allows merchant account users to process card payments by key-entering transaction data directly into their processing bank’s payment system.

Once a merchant account is set up, the user is given a direct access to the processor’s back end. The user can log in from anywhere internet connection is present and use the service to accept credit and check card payments, but also to process refunds, as well as simply request transaction authorizations, without submitting payments for clearing and settlement.

Virtual Terminal vs. Payment Gateway

Payment gateways connect e-commerce websites with payment processors, allowing the two to communicate with each other, exchanging payment information, authorization requests and responses and any other data that may need to be transmitted. Payment gateways gather information that is already submitted by the cardholder and is stored in the website’s shopping cart. This is where the difference between the two services is to be found. While gateways perform the transmission of already provided transaction data, virtual terminals allow card acceptors to manually enter it into the processor’s system.

Web-based merchants typically get these two services together as a single package when setting up a merchant account. The reason is that each payment gateway, or at least the major ones, features a virtual terminal. The most popular one is the Authorize.Net and UniBul Merchant Services offers it for free.

Why Should Merchants Be Using Virtual Terminals?

The paramount reason is convenience. If a merchant accepts payments by phone or in the mail, there simply isn’t a more convenient way to process their information. All a merchant has to do is manually enter the data into a payment form within a browser and click submit.

Before the emergence of the virtual terminal as a viable payment processing service, card acceptors had two main options for accepting payments received by phone or in the mail. Payment information would be called into the bank's automated telephone payment system or key-enter it into their POS terminal. The reason some card acceptors still use these options is mostly habit. There is nothing wrong with either of these options, however a virtual terminal is much more convenient.

Virtual Terminal Pricing

UniBul Merchant Services charges no set-up and no monthly fees. The processing rate is a flat 2.20% + $0.30 per transaction and there is no per-authorization fee. There are no fixed monthly fees of any sort. The only requirement is that merchants generate at least $20 in processing fees each month.

Contact:
Joe Cole
UniBul Merchant Services
617-861-6101 – phone
617-684-1709 – fax
press@unibulmerchantservices.com - email
https://www.unibulmerchantservices.com – web
http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com – blog
http://blog.unibulmerchantservices.com/virtual-terminal-c... - virtual terminal explained
https://www.unibulmerchantservices.com/virtual-terminal-credit-card-processing - virtual terminal program

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UniBul Merchant Services is an Independent Sales Organization (ISO), registered with Visa and MasterCard as a provider of payment processing services for US businesses.