Mercury Payment Offers Automated Merchant Enrollment

Mercury Payment Systems LLC now offers software tools for application developers to use to enroll merchants online for Mercury's payment processing and card services.

Durango, Colo.-based Mercury Payment announced MercuryActivate Aug. 5 at the RetailNOW 2013 convention in Las Vegas. Mercury says it is the first payment processor to offer an automated merchant enrollment process in the form of an application programming interface.

"Our developer community told us this API would be a positive addition to our service," John Berkley, senior vice president of product for Mercury, states in a press release. Developers can embed the MercuryActivate capabilities directly within their point of sale software, portal or website. MercuryActivate provides a "hands-off merchant enrollment system" to expand market opportunities for Mercury's business partners, Berkley says.

MercuryActivate offers automated enrollment for pre-approved merchants, with easier data collection and instantaneous response to merchant applications, the company says. The enrollment process lets developers choose how to enroll merchants at any stage of the acquisition process.

Over the coming months, the company will allow point of sale resellers to embed the MercuryActivate merchant form into their Web properties.

Mercury Payment targets small merchants. It uses a network of resellers and independent sales organizations to service merchants for installation and expansion of POS systems.

Nearly a year ago, Mercury announced a partnership with Voltage Security to provide data encryption for its clients as part of Payment Card Industry data security standards compliance.

Mercury Payments founder Jeff Katz has also invested in CardFree, a San Francisco-based mobile commerce provider for small businesses. Katz became chairman of the board for CardFree.