Citgo Petroleum Corp. has agreed to make Heartland Payment Systems Inc.’s SmartLink payment system available to its 6,500 Citgo retailers, payment processor Heartland announced Dec. 2.
Launched in February, SmartLink consolidates multiple in-store communication lines into one high-speed broadband line and transmits payment data over a secure sockets layer-encrypted network connection (
“It can take them from a slow connection that takes anywhere from eight to 15 seconds to between two and six seconds for a transaction,” Youngkin says.
Houston-based Citgo’s retailers process with Princeton, N.J.-based Heartland, but other merchants wanting to use SmartLink are not obligated to be Heartland processing customers, Youngkin says. “Outside of Citgo, we could service [merchants] even though they may be a client of another processor,” he says.
Using the SmartLink system, convenience- and petroleum-store owners can manage and monitor in-store environmental-control systems, back-office data such as Internet use, point-of-sale terminals, ATMs, and fleet and loyalty card transactions, according to Heartland.
SmartLink requires a broadband Internet connection and a hardware terminal. Youngkin would not say what the costs are, but merchants must buy the device and pay a monthly fee, which does not include the per-transaction rates processors apply to payment card transactions. Contract length varies, he notes.
Since SmartLink’s launch, more than 400 merchants have begun using the service, and another 250 are in the installation queue, Youngkin says.
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