NOVA Becomes Single Point of Contact for Statements, Settlement and Support


ATLANTA and NEW YORK – January 17, 2008 – NOVA Information Systems (NOVA), a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB), and American Express (NYSE:AXP) today announced the signing of an agreement under which NOVA will sign up and service American Express merchants on behalf of American Express. Under the terms of the agreement, NOVA will add American Express® Card acceptance to the payment processing services offered to merchants. NOVA will provide processing, settlement, customer support and reporting to merchants for all major card brands.

NOVA will have the ability to offer American Express services to the thousands of new U.S. merchants it signs each month. The program is also open to existing NOVA merchants that wish to now add American Express Card acceptance and use NOVA as their single point of contact. With this agreement, NOVA now provides processing services for all major card brands — American Express, Discover® Network, MasterCard® and Visa® — simplifying the process for merchants who would like to have one company to contact regarding any questions or issues.

Under this agreement, NOVA will offer processing and support services to small and mid-size merchants meeting defined processing parameters. American Express will retain the Card acceptance contract with the merchants, continue to set merchant pricing, perform authorizations, , and receive the same transactional information it does today. The program will be available to merchants that are new to American Express Card acceptance beginning in the second half of 2008

“NOVA continually strives to improve the customer experience for our many small business clients,” said Stuart C. Harvey, Jr., president, NOVA. “The ability to include American Express Card processing and funding in our merchant services package eliminates the complexities businesses face when dealing with multiple providers and expands payment choices for consumers.”

“We are proud to offer this new program with NOVA to small to mid-size merchants. Now they have a new way to streamline payment acceptance for all card brands, allowing business owners to focus on meeting the needs of their customers,” said Kim Goodman, executive vice president, Merchant Services North America, American Express. “Consumers will also enjoy the convenience of being able to use the American Express Card at even more locations and the opportunity to earn valuable rewards whenever they use their Card.”

About NOVA
NOVA Information Systems, a leader in the payment processing industry is a wholly owned subsidiary of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB). NOVA and its European affiliate Elavon provide global merchant processing services to financial institutions and clients in the United States, Canada, Puerto Rico and Europe. NOVA offers integrated payment processing services to more than 1,000,000 merchants worldwide. For more information, visit www.novainfo.com.


About American Express
American Express Company is a leading global payments, network, travel and banking company founded in 1850. Merchant Services is the merchant network of American Express, which acquires and maintains relationships with millions of merchants around the globe, which welcome American Express-branded Cards.

Labels: American Express, credit card processing, merchant services provider, NOVA

WASHINGTON D.C. (December 18, 2007) – The George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates (MFA) announces that it has integrated InstaMed Automated Eligibility with its patient accounting systems to support real-time and batch automated eligibility inquiries to InstaMed’s Network. InstaMed currently supports real-time eligibility to over 430 health plans, including all national health plans, blues plans and Medicare plans for all 50 states.

Healthcare providers like the MFA are faced with managing the challenges posed by increasing patient responsibility and a need for accurate information in their administrative environments. Time consuming and costly calls to health plans, claim rejection issues and ballooning health plan and patient receivables require new ways of thinking by industry leaders. Leading healthcare delivery organizations are looking for powerful solutions that can seamlessly integrate with their existing workflow as well as their practice and health information management systems.

“We were no exception.” Stephen Badger, CEO of the MFA stated. “Our patient volumes are steadily increasing, and like every healthcare provider we need to work hard to collect the receivables and needed to acquire new electronic tools to eliminate the manual processes. Standard solutions such as phone calls or using health plan web sites to double key information are not viable solutions in our environment. We required an eligibility and benefit inquiry solution that was integrated to our systems, real-time capable and flexible enough to meet our business requirements.”

With seamless integration into their IDX patient accounting system and support for both real-time and batch transaction processing, the MFA is now able to verify patient eligibility and available benefit structure prior to service delivery, automatically update the patient record, and proactively address any potential eligibility issues across all of their operating units.

Bill Marvin, President of InstaMed stated, “The George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates is one of the nation’s leading healthcare delivery organizations and we are excited to partner with them to address their business challenges. This is an excellent example of InstaMed’s ability to integrate real-time transaction capabilities to deliver a significant business case in a complex healthcare provider environment.”

About The George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates
The George Washington University Medical Faculty Associates (MFA) is a non-profit, 501(c) (3) physician group practice corporation comprising the academic clinical faculty for The George Washington University Medical Center. In its seventh year of existence, the MFA has grown to include over 300 physicians providing medical care in 41 specialty areas. Aside from its expertise in patient care, medical education and scientific research, the MFA is leading the way to modernize the practice of medicine with the adaptation and implementation of technology to improve the patient experience. Visit the MFA on the web at www.gwdocs.com.

About InstaMed
InstaMed is a real-time clearinghouse and payment processor for the healthcare industry utilizing the patent pending InstaMed Platform and Network. InstaMed’s mission is to transform the healthcare payment process for healthcare Providers, Payers, Banks and Patients so their payment experience is simple, convenient, reliable and secure. InstaMed currently supports the healthcare payment processing needs of over 400 hospital and clinic locations; practice management vendors and billing services representing over 50,000 providers; and hundreds of healthcare payers of all sizes. InstaMed is registered with Visa and MasterCard as an ISO/MSP/PSP of U.S. Bank. InstaMed is Payment Card Industry Level One certified and fully accredited by the Electronic Healthcare Network Accreditation Commission. InstaMed is also a member of the C.O.R.E. Initiative (Committee on Operating Rules for Information Exchange) and WEDI (Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange). Visit InstaMed on the web at www.instamed.com.

Labels: credit card processing, healthcare payments, InstaMed, merchant services provider

If merchants and the merchant service providers servicing them are not hearing an ominous tick, tick, tick, maybe they should. On Sept. 30, 2007, Visa U.S.A. intends to begin fining merchant service providers $5,000 per month for each of their level 1 and level 2 merchants who have not complied with the Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard.

That's not all. Noncompliant merchants may be assessed fines starting at $25,000 per month. And said merchants also face the prospect of being downgraded one level, meaning they will have to pay more for credit card transaction processing.

Acquiring banks are responsible for making sure their merchants are PCI compliant. And the PCI standard is meant to safeguard credit card cardholders' information.

A level 2 merchant is any business that transaction processes 1 to 6 million Visa transactions per year. A level 1 merchant is defined as any merchant credit card processing over 6 million Visa transactions per year. But the level 1 category also applies to credit card processing merchants who have suffered hacks on their computer systems that resulted in the theft of customers' account data.

Furthermore, Visa and MasterCard Worldwide can categorize any merchant as level 1 if the card Associations deem the credit card processing merchants pose a risk to the system.

According to the PCI Compliance Guide (found at www.pcicomplianceguide.org), Visa predicts 65% of all credit card processing merchants will have complied with the PCI by the end of 2007; the threat of levying fines is designed to speed the process.

The PCI includes 12 major requirements credit card processing merchants must strictly adhere to. Any violation may result in a business losing its compliance status. Each incidence of noncompliance will result in fines, suspension and revocation of a credit card processing privileges.

For PCI compliance, all merchants are required to fill out a Self Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) annually. The SAQ is approximately 75 questions designed to assess a merchant's actual working conditions.

Merchants are also required to undergo a quarterly scan of their systems for storing, transmitting and processing cardholder data. Scans must be done by approved PCI scanning vendors.

Labels: credit card processing, merchant services provider, payment card industry data security standard

What is a chargeback?
A chargeback is a credit card processing transaction disputed by the cardholder or card issuer. There are many reasons for chargebacks, but the most common are returned merchandise, terminated services, disputes, errors, or fraud. Merchants must be able to provide proof that the disputed credit card transaction is valid and in accordance with Visa/MasterCard regulations or risk having their account debited for the disputed credit card processing amount..

What does a chargeback mean to me?
For your credit card processing business, a chargeback translates into extra processing time and cost, a narrower profit margin for the sale, and possibly a loss of revenue. It is important to carefully track and manage the credit card processing chargebacks that you receive, take steps to avoid future chargebacks, and know your representment rights. In addition, you should also take measures to recover losses from customers who are financially liable for transactions that were charged back to your business.

How do I avoid chargebacks?
To avoid chargebacks, act promptly if contacted directly by the cardholder to resolve a dispute. By working directly with the cardholder, you can avoid costly fees and credit card processing costs as well as promote goodwill with your customer. If the cardholder does not contact you, respond to inquiries from your merchant service provider with as much information as possible about the sales transaction in question.

Labels: chargebacks, credit card processing, merchant services provider

In July 2007, Visa USA announced that 96 percent of the largest businesses that process VISA credit cards for payment have confirmed they are not storing sensitive credit card processing account data. Storing prohibited credit card processing data including security codes and PINs violated Visa rules and increases a business’ risk by making it a target for hackers.

In conjunction with this success, VISA recently announced a program designed to strengthen security among the smaller merchants. While less than 5 percent of potentially exposed accounts are stolen from small businesses, more than 80 percent of all identified compromises since January 1, 2005 occurred at small businesses.

Visa’s program calls for merchant service providers to strengthen their existing data security efforts to identify and address risks among their small credit card processing customers, including identifying whether merchants are storing sensitive account data.

Labels: credit card processing, merchant services provider, Visa

According to a recent national Teen Gift Card Survey, 98 percent of all teens between the ages of 14 and 19 have either bought or received a gift card processed through a merchant service provider.

Commissioned by a leading national gift card supplier and merchant service provider, the survey of 604 college-bound teens also reveals that in 2007 teens purchased almost double the number of gift cards they did in 2006 (7.6 vs. 4.3 cards — a 77 percent increase). Further, the average loaded dollar amount on cards given went from $28 to $33.

Teens also reported that nearly one-half (46 percent) of the presents they give are gift cards — a twelve percent increase from 2006. Males are still more likely to give gift cards (50 percent) than females (43 percent), but these electronic transaction processing cards packed with cash are becoming a more popular gift option every year.

Labels: electonic gift cards, merchant services provider