Hi All,

I have a small business and would like to think I'm very customer orientated. I try to offer good customer service, something I think we all agree is often lacking in Zurich . I was just wondering if any of you have any information about the company, telekurs, offering credit card terminals, or if you have any good advice on how I could do this without getting totally screwed by the credit card company?

Thanks!

Lynn

Hi Lynn, There are several ways to do this and I was looking at this some time ago and will be again soon. I will get my notes out and post them. Ultimately though prepare to be screwed by the credit card company. The swipe terminal which you cannot do without - it also allows you to key in cards and amounts etc will set you back over CHF1000 as in well over and there is no way to avoid this... Telekurs is just one of the solutions though... Richard

Hi Richard, I know merchants should be prepare to be screwed when it comes to credit cards - but the high price of a terminal surprises me. It's just a card reader, modem and thermal printer. Judging by the price of other electronics these days it should cost about 100 francs - and it is also a mass produced item - everybody has one!

I'm also guessing that terminals should be available for those who have broadband internet access, which would eliminate the need for a phone line, and in this case, surely it would be possible to make a PC emulate a terminal. All you need is a card reader for the PC (cheap) and a thermal printer (also very cheap). Or am I a bit ahead of my time here? Do the terminals really cost so much in other countries?

Mark

Hi Mark, Yep but don't forget you also need a way of getting a secure transaction to the bank in a format they accept. This part is closed shop. You can actually get a solution similar to that you propose even using a laser printer to print the stuff out. Don't forget you don't actually need a signature for the credit card transaction to be valid - it just provides proof in the case of dispute. The point is your solution needs to be accepted by the bank and that means paying a licence fee to them for their side of the admin (certifiactes etc)and that in turn means you can only get accepted if you are big enough and possibly producing integrated EFTPOS solutions. So take the hit and move on. I will check that the above is still valid for all banks in CH but I cannot imagine it has changed. By the way in the UK they provide the console FOC BUT you need to pay maintenance which is £100 per year same day on-site. Richard

Oh boy... and I all want to do is improve my customer service, encourage the use of credit card payments... and I get screwed!

Dumb but hopefuly inspirational question time:

If a small businesses can setup an account to receive credit card payment for via a website, is there any reason why they can't use that at their point of sale?

I mean, if I bought something from Lynn online, I'd type in my details and click. Why not just do the same thing in situ?

=DM=

Yes of course it is possible to set up an online transaction capability. There are two ways this is done. One is via the swipe card manually after you enter your details and one via an applet that securely passes you to a secure page owned by the bank where you submit the details and the transaction occurs online. Generally you pay a small fee per transaction say 20rp. If you are transaction light this is the way to go also if you are an online shop as you do not want to reject transactions because you are in bed!

Richard

Actually that sounds like a great approach. In theory every business could do this. All they need is an internet-connected computer wherever they do their sales. By collecting the information via a secure web page the bank solves most of their security headache, no additional hardware is required and the staff simply key in the details from the card. Another nice bonus is that no additional software needs to be installed, since it all runs in the browser! The only downside is that it would take a few seconds longer than with a terminal, but as you point out, if you are transaction light then it would be a perfect solution.

So the next question is - is it possible in CH? If so, where and how?

Mark

Just found this:

http://www.optimalpayments.co.uk/

Their front page says that they take payment in CHF, but clients must be based in France,Ireland,Netherlands,Portugal and UK. I'm clarifying exactly what this means, and if there is a way around it. Thought it might be interesting for people who are looking at this issue.

Mark

Hi Lynn,

Telekurs is a company owned by CreditSuisse.

As a small business trying to offer the credit card option you can also use PayPal. It will not cost you anything to get a business account with them and you do not need any special equipment to process the charges. Your clients do not even have to have a PayPal account. The only thing you need to look into are 2 fees: the first is for the transaction itself which will be between 1.9% to 3.4% depending on your monthly sales volume plus 0.35 cents Euro; the second will be if applied if the payment needs to be converted from Euro into Swiss Francs as PayPal does not handle Swiss Francs as one of their holding currency. They accept all currencies but convert the proceeds from the sales into one of the 8 or 9 currencies which they handle.

You can find more information here:

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc...e&countries=EU

One final suggestion if you decide to use PayPal is to make a copy of your clients' credit card and have them sign a receipt stating they received the service for which the credit card was used for. It will simply protect you against any one that might at a later point try to decline the charge.

Hi Doktor.s,

Sorry I didn't answer this one sooner - I just wanted to point out something about paypal. It would be a bit difficult to explain to Swiss customers, in Switzerland, that you are going to charge their card in Euro... If it were me I'd be upset by that since everybody knows that any exchange in currency means paying some fees to the bank / credit card provider. On holiday that's one thing, at home it's quite another...

It's a shame - I wish it were a viable option.

I am now using a system that is similar in work to PayPal but offers more security against chargebacks and allows for payment in a wide variety of currencies. Membership is free and they are based out of the UK.

www.moneybookers.com

I hope this helps. .-)

Happy Easter!

Just checked their site - CHF yes, but 8% fee for credit card transactions? Is this what you are paying?

Mark

Hum... don't see the 8% fee with Moneybookers.com for credit card transactions Mark.

They charge 2.5% for uploading funds into one's account with a credit card. Uploading funds into one's account with a bank account is free.

To send the money to someone costs 1% with a maximum charge of 0.50 cents (Euro).

To receive the money does not cost anything.

To withdraw the money and put it into your bank account costs a flat fee of €1.80. To withdraw the money with a bank cheque or put the money received into your credit card costs a flat fee of €3.50.

So, basically if anyone wants to pay with a credit card they are paying 2.5% to be able to do so. Since the person making the payment is using the credit card to put money into their personal moneybookers account, the person getting paid does not have to worrry about charge backs because they are in essence getting a cash payment.

The fees are actually much lower than with PayPal and the security of not having to worry about charge backs is definitely more than worth giving the system a try.

Sorry, just re-checked the moneybookers site and money withdrawn into a Visa credit card costs €1,80 not €3,50 (like I previously wrote). Oops

This is listed as the fees for a vendor. The issue here is that a vendor has a store (a physical store) and wants to accept credit cards. I think he might have a difficult time convincing a customer to upload funds from their credit card to their moneybookers account (which is small, but not free) in order the pay them. This might work fine for person to person payments on the internet, but I don't really see this as a viable point of sale option.

The point of sale option is available, but then I presume the fee of 8% would apply.

Sorry Mark. You are quite right about the point you make. The commercial rate they have is quite high at 8%.

Their service is mainly good for small transactions. I use them mainly for when I sell items over the net. So, it is a good alternative to Paypal.

Ok, time to update this thread with some useful info. I was at the Orbit show today (yawn) and did some investigation.

Since we started this thread things have changed a little in the market. Telekurs have dropped their rates. A new merchant can expect 2.7% for low volumes, depending on their industry.

Corner bank used to be in the merchant services game but sold it and now do just credit cards. But I did chat to them and they told me who they sold it to and they happened to be at the show as well.

The company is called Aduno (www.aduno.ch). Their website bites as does their flowery brochures, but the gist of it is that they can provide the same services as telekurs, and usually at a cheaper price.

So if you are looking at accepting credit cards, it might be worth to get in touch with them to compare.

For intial setup acepting credit card through paypal is easy and safe also.It is quite easy to setup with no intial setup fee.

Except that they don't do Swiss francs, and it actually works out quite expensive. We already discussed by Paypal doens't work so well for Swiss businesses with a physical presense earlier in this thread.