Online Financial Tips

Archive for November, 2011

Speed And Credit Card Processing

If you’ve just started your online business or have been in business for some time one day you might realize you suddenly need to process and accept credit cards quickly, even if you haven’t in the past. It could be that a new customer has contacted you and wants to place an extremely large order. You may suddenly realize you are losing thousands of dollars in revenues by not processing credit cards. Regardless of the reason, you need to set up a credit card processing payment system fast.

What do you do? The best step you can take is to be informed. If you plan to open a merchant account in your name you may be surprised to find out you’ll need time and lots of documentation in order to set up an account successfully. You can hire an intermediary but you will probably still have to deal with a bunch of paperwork and hassles that may prevent you from getting where you need to go quickly.

Fortunately you have another option, third party processors. You can set up credit card processing through many third party processors in 24 hours or less. Try 2Checkout or Paypal for example. Paypal will require that you verify certain information that could take 24 hours, but for the most part you should be able to process credit card payments relatively quickly. You can always switch to a merchant account under your name after you manage the crisis at hand!

Credit card payment is the most common way of online transaction, yet when it comes to understanding how credit card processing works most of us are quite confused.

When a retail store cashier swipes your credit card through credit card terminal, the following process takes place: credit card and payment details are sent electronically to merchant’s acquiring bank, which contacts credit card issuing bank; in case transaction is approved, funds are deposited on the merchants account.

Online credit card processing in ecommerce adheres to the same processing steps, except the physical credit card terminal that swipes your card in a retail store is substituted by payment gateway (Authorize.Net, 2checkout, CHASE Paymentech, etc.) – a service that processes online payments in a secure way.
The overall credit card processing scheme in an online store usually looks like the following:

A merchant needs to have a merchant account and a payment gateway account in order to set up credit cad processing in his store.

Let’s follow the steps from the time a customer types his credit card number in an online store to pay for his order till he receives a response whether the payment went through:

1. A customer places an order and types his credit card number on a secure site of an online store. Store administrator sees the shopping cart details, which include order and billing information.

2. Shopping cart details along with merchant account are sent to payment gateway secure server for processing.

3. Payment gateway forwards transaction information to merchant’s acquiring bank.

4. Merchant’s acquiring bank forwards transaction information to the credit card issuing bank for transaction verification.

5. Credit card issuing bank verifies transaction and sends response code (Approve, Deny, and reason for denial if applicable) back to merchant’s acquiring bank.

6. Merchant’s bank sends credit card transaction details and response back to payment gateway. If payment is approved, the bank will deposit funds on a merchant’s account at the scheduled time.

7. Payment gateway sends transaction details and response back to merchant’s online store.

8. Payment information is displayed to the customer; i.e. “credit card was charged”, “credit card was denied”, etc.

At certain processing stages fees will be charged from the transaction total. The amount of fees depends on a payment gateway used, merchant account, credit card type, and other factors; it usually adds up to be two to three percent of total charges.

Let’s face it, trying to figure out all the perils your home might run into over the years is a pain. In fact, if you’re not psychic it’s practically impossible! That’s why buying a named perils homeowners insurance policy is so difficult, and why most people opt for all perils coverage. It saves you the trouble of having to divine every peril your home may be facing. The trouble is, your all perils policy might not be as safe as you think it is.

There is a perfect storm brewing in long-term care. Most of those at risk are either oblivious to it, in denial that it will not happen to them or procrastinating thinking they have lots of time to act.

The truth of the matter is taking responsibility for your long-term care sooner than later will give you options that you may not have later on. Your options will disappear as you get older and with that you won’t be as healthy.

The truth of the matter is that people are living longer and as there is a growing need for long-term care. The resources for providing this type of care are shrinking. There will be more “baby boomers” needing this type of care than there will be caregivers ready and able to provide care.

The public is not aware that Medicare isn’t a solution to the long-term care problem in America. According to Medicare & You 2010, Medicare only pays for medically-necessary skilled nursing facility or home health care if you meet certain conditions. Long-term care can be provided at home, in the community, in assisted living, or in a nursing home. A skilled nursing facility is covered only after a 3-day minimum inpatient hospital stay for a related illness or injury. Medicare doesn’t cover long-term care or custodial care in this setting. “Medicaid is a joint Federal and state program that helps pay medical costs if you have limited income and resources and meet other eligibility requirements.”

Many people have put off getting long-term care insurance because they believe they will be provided benefits through the government. Perhaps, they also do not completely understand the benefits of long-term care insurance.

It is important to educate yourself on what long-term care insurance can do for you and your family. How does it fit in with your overall retirement plan? It is designed with a specific purpose in mind.

Long-term care insurance helps you pay for services that other health insurances do not cover.

In the event you become unable to care for yourself, this insurance will take care of all of the mandatory costs to get you the help that you need. It pays for home care givers, home nurses, specialists, etc. It will even pay for care in facilities like: nursing homes and Alzheimer facilities. It will help to pay for hospice care and respite care as well.

This is a great additional insurance to have. You will be able to have reassurance by knowing that in the event you need this type of care, irrespective of what your age is, that all the costs will be covered and you will be ready to receive satisfactory care. Believe it or not, the large portion of those who need this kind of care are between the ages of18 and 64 (working age people). That just goes to show you that even younger folks need this insurance and that it isn’t necessarily for the older generation.

Schedule a consultation with a Long-Term Care Specialist to see if this makes sense for you. Then, you can put together an educated long-term care plan.

Are your debts becoming too much of a burden for you? Well, your country can help you deal with this crisis in the form of government debt consolidation loans.

Although, there are many debt consolidation loans that you can consider to can help pay multiple creditors through a single monthly payment. Your best option still may be the several government backed debt consolidation loans that the federal government offers its citizens due to various reasons.

What are Government Debt Consolidation Loans?

These loans are made available by the federal government to help you pay multiple loans and creditors using similar principles of debt consolidation like any other private program. The loan allows you to consolidate multiple loans into one. This way you only need to make one single payment each month rather than three or four.

As you already know, in most cases the loans are high-interest unsecured ones; therefore converting them in to secured loans is bound to be beneficial for the borrower as it leads to low interest rates. They save you money and make your financial planning and budgeting easier.

Debt Consolidation for Federal Student Loans

Students who have multiple federal student loans to fund their educational expenses can benefit from government backed debt consolidation loans. Government backed loans help make repayment of the loans feasible for student or parents – without the hassle of having to deal with multiple loan payments every month.

There are many loans offered by the government that are designed to help out students. There are two programs under the Higher Education Act (HEA) which can allow consolidation loans. One program is Direct Consolidation Loan Program and the other is FFEL or Federal Family Education Loan program.

In the program, the Direct Consolidation Loan program, the US Department of Education helps students through debt consolidation loans to pay off education loans. After that, a new loan is issued to the student which contains the consolidated amount of all the old loans.

In case of the FFEL or Federal Family Education Loan Program, the borrower is provided with a new consolidation loan which can be used to pay off any loan that the student might have and not just educational loans.

Government Student Loan Repayment Plans

The government debt consolidation loan programs offer four different plans to the borrower, they are:

1. ICR or Income Contingent Repayment plan
2. Extended payment plan
3. Graduated payment plan and
4. Standard plan

Each plan provides the borrower with different features to meet the requirements of the individual. This provides flexibility which is a key factor in any debt consolidation program.

Consolidating your debts can help simplify your repayment process, as all of your existing loans may not have similar payment dates and terms. You pay back different types of loans with the help of one single loan. The amount that you would need to pay every month should be lower and the pay-back may also get stretched to ease the repayment process. At the end of it all, getting a government debt consolidation loan also increases the chances of paying back your loans on time.

If you plan to open a bank account it is important to know the differences between the different types of accounts that are available to you. A savings account is an account that is available to almost anyone. The only requirement to open and own an account is to deposit a certain amount of money and keep that money in the account until you decide to close it. A savings account will also accumulate interest in the form of a percentage of your balance. A savings account is meant to store funds that you do not plan on using very often, so avoid withdrawing a lot of money from it. A checking account, on the other hand is meant to be used for convenience and as a means of making many transactions. With the acquisition of a checking account you will be issued a debit card, which can be used as a form of payment anywhere where debit cards are accepted. You can also write checks as another form of payment, but only if the funds are in your checking account. You cannot access any money in a savings account through checks.

Managing your bank account does not have to be a hassle anymore. Balancing a checkbook has always been a useful skill, but sometimes it can become cumbersome. This step has been simplified through online banking. Checking your on line savings account is very simple and through your bank or credit union’s website you can keep track of all transactions and changes made to your accounts. You can access your on line savings account and your checking account, make payments to a third party, and even apply for loans online.

When accessing the online banking system, you should always do it from a private computer, because a public computer might accidentally store sensitive account information that can lead to the compromise of your bank funds.