Chicago accepting payments by card with SPS system.

Merchant processing firm SPS Payment Systems, Inc. announced last week that is providing electronic services to the City of Chicago, allowing consumers to pay for government services with their credit cards.

Chicagoans and visitors can now use Visa, MasterCard, Discover Card, Diners Club, or Carte Blanche cards to pay for a variety of transactions that were previously payable only in cash.

Parking fees at O'Hare and Midway airports, parking violations, towing fees, city taxes, and evening charges for issuing building permits can now be paid with credit cards, SPS officials said.

Latest Move in a Trend

The Riverwoods, Ill.-based company will process the transactions under its contract with Independence Bank, and also will provide the city with card authorization terminals and the systems support necessary to process payments.

The contract, for which financial terms were not disclosed, is the latest in a trend of more local and state governments allowing taxpayers to use credit cards.

Robert W. Archer, SPS senior vice president of sales said, "Clearly, municipal government is an area where credit card acceptance is on the rise in response to consumer demand for added convenience, as well as the need [for public officials] to cut costs and increase efficiency."

Special Needs for Chicago

As part of the contract, SPS customized some of its systems to address some of Chicago's special requirements. For example, in order to accelerate the payment of parking fees at O'Hare Airport, SPS installed high-speed digital telephone lines to the parking facilities and allowed transactions under certain amounts to be processed without a customer's signature.

SPS officials also said governments can improve their cash flow by giving consumers the option of paying by credit card, because these electronic transactions can be processed faster than checks.

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