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Five merchants, including Improvement Direct, Sweetwater Sound, DiscountDance, OnlineCarStereo.com, and Stacks and Stacks, have signed up for eBillme's payment service, which enables consumers to pay for online goods directly from their checking accounts through online-banking services, the company announced this week. Some 200 merchants now participate in eBillme, a unit of ModaSolutions Corp., Samer Forzley, vice president of marketing, tells CardLine. The merchants generally have $5 million or more in annual sales, Forzley says. Launched in 2005 as Secure e-Bill and changed to eBillme in 2007, the service bypasses conventional credit card payment networks in favor of bill-pay services consumers access through online banking. Upon checkout at a participating merchant's Web site, the consumer chooses the eBillme option that directs him to his bank's online-banking service. The consumer chooses the bank's bill-pay service and adds eBillme as a payee, then completes the payment just as he would to pay other bills using the online-banking site. Once the merchant receives the payment from eBillme, the time of which can vary based on how quickly the bank forwards the payment, the merchant completes the order and ships the product. EBillme says merchants pay the company from 1% to 2% of the sale amount for the payment, depending on a merchant's sales volume. EBillme's rates include no additional fees, such as network-switch and processing fees associated with payment card transactions, Forzely says. A sampling of independent sales organization rates posted online suggests merchants can pay ISOs discount rates ranging from 2.2% to 2.39% of the sale to accept Visa or MasterCard credit card transactions. The discount rate includes the interchange rate and fees acquirers and processors add. The interchange rate for a typical MasterCard credit card purchase online is 1.58% per sale plus 10 cents. ModaSolutions is based in Ottawa, Ontario.
