IMGCAP(1)]
Independent sales organizations signing merchants to Authorize.Net's payment gateway will see some changes early next year, John Bodine, the new executive in charge of Authorize.Net, tells ISO&Agent, a CardLine sister publication. Bodine says the new features will make it faster for merchants to set up Authorize.Net accounts. One feature will eliminate the need for an ISO to enter the merchant's account information twice. An Authorize.Net application automatically will extract the relevant information from the ISO's system into the Authorize.Net system. Another feature will enable merchants to activate their accounts as soon as they are set up, a step that could mean same-day activations instead of having to wait for merchants to sign paper contracts and complete paper forms. Billing for the merchant does not start until the account is activated, so the faster process could help ISOs keep the sale. Merchants could change their minds about using the service in the time between account setup and activation, and the longer that time the greater the opportunity for the ISO to lose the sale, Bodine explains. "Resellers would like to see the merchant come online and be ready to go [on the same day]," Bodine says. Authorize.Net also will alter its billing system so it can bill the merchant the setup fee for an account, he says. Currently, an ISO separately bills the merchant that fee. Once the merchant account is operational, Authorize.Net handles the monthly and per-transaction billing on behalf of the ISO, a process Bodine says will continue. All three features are to be available by the end of the first quarter of 2009. Bodine also expects changes to his company's automated clearinghouse services to begin in February. Authorize.Net is a unit of CyberSource Corp., a Mountain View, Calif.-based payment-gateway company.
