Virtual economies are garnering the attention of real world business magazines.  Magazines such as Forbes have published several excellent articles on virtual worlds within the past year.  As the real world economies have been tanking, sales of virtual goods and digital products is on the upswing.
The worldwide virtual goods market is estimated to be around [...]

Cross border international payments are on the rise.  The Boston Consulting Group predicts a compound annual growth rate of 10.2 percent internationally and 7.8 percent for the Americas through 2010. Interviews with the top 20 US banks reveal that international payments will double within the next 3 years.
Both individuals and corporations are international entities.  Companies [...]

When applying for high risk merchant account processing, most processors and banks ask for financial statements, generally Balance Sheets and Income Statements.  The reason is that financial statements give underwriters the ability to see a “snapshot” of the financial operations of a company.  Financial stability, of course, is important in determining the degree of risk [...]

The first 3-6 months of processing are the most important for both high risk merchants and the acquiring bank.  Merchants and the acquiring banks are building business relationships and each is confirming that agreements will be honored.   The merchant wants to be sure that payment processing and settlement times are satisfactory.  The acquiring banks are [...]

A chargeback is the reversal of a previous sales transaction where the buyer disputes the charge.  Although all merchants should carefully manage chargebacks, correct management of chargebacks is crucial to high risk merchant accounts.
A chargeback occurs when a buyer disputes a sales transaction and requested a reversal of the transaction.  Chargebacks can also be caused [...]

With the current economic downturn, international companies are examining banking operational efficiencies and seeking to trim expenses wherever possible.  Minimizing bank fees, currency conversion costs, and using technology to automate processes is more important than ever before.  Careful establishment of international merchant accounts is important to this planning.
International companies must manage multiple bank accounts across [...]

Here are five common sense tips to prevent payment processing security breaches.

Check data flows.   Be sure no data files exist that store transaction data.  Using a PCI compliant gateway is important to protect your business.
Validate inputs. Web applications must be sure information being entered in a particular field is appropriate for that field,  Without such [...]

Some high-risk merchants think that all they need to do to get credit card processing is to open an offshore merchant account.  They believe that offshore banks will permit them to do pretty much anything that they want for payment processing.  If they have high chargebacks, they believe the offshore banks ought to be fine [...]

A good payment processing gateway goes a long way in protecting merchants against breaches in their payment processing systems.  Yet, many businesses don’t take enough care to protect their own computer systems.
In the quickly evolving world of internet fraud, viruses, Trojans, and malware are being joined by new opportunity for crimes. Multimedia files such as [...]

International ecommerce is a bright spot in the general gloomy economic news.  Predictions are that by 2010, revenues for international ecommerce will top the $1 trillion mark and growth will continue at a steep rate.
To take advantage of the remarkable opportunities in international ecommerce, businesses need to accept payments from all over the world.  Whilst [...]