American Express (Amex) is known globally as a trusted credit card company that offers unique benefits and attentive customer service to their customers. Although they have been in the credit card business for 70 years now, they were originally founded as a freight forwarding company and it took them 100 years to roll out their first credit card. Fast forward to 2020, and American Express continues to pioneer the digital commerce space while offering new and exciting options to its customers and merchants.

American Express has long been viewed as the “other” credit card in terms of merchant acceptance. With steeper processing rates than Visa or Mastercard, merchants are often hesitant to accept Amex cards as it can cut into their profits. But, Amex has continued to offer exciting additions to their suite of products that have made it easier and more profitable for merchants to accept Amex cards—the key, however, is understanding these more appealing options for qualified merchants.

The payment and retail landscapes were already undergoing a massive digital transformation before COVID-19 hit. Spurred on by new technologies, customers and business owners have been increasingly seeking out bill pay and checkout experiences that reduce friction; speed up processing and funding times; and eliminate unnecessary wait times or interactions.

Since COVID-19 has made its unfortunate appearance, though, preferences for faster and more digitized payment processes are only growing more urgent. Now, excessive human interactions aren’t just time-consuming, but a potential safety risk. Online shopping and bill pay methods aren’t just convenient; they help maintain social distancing. Mobile order-ahead and contactless payments aren’t just trendy, they provide greater peace of mind. 

Customizing your customer payment flow just got that much easier—the new PaymentSITE Management module is now in beta! Available in the Settings tab of our Cardknox Merchant Portal, PaymentSITE Management allows you to make many changes to the layout and display of your PaymentSITE all on your own—such as :

Clover’s lineup of smart terminals is preferred by many retail and restaurant merchants for their innovative design, extensive array of POS apps (think customer loyalty, inventory management, and food deliveries), and support for a wide range of payment methods. As a Fidelity Merchant, you now have access to Clover’s latest devices that will be sure to upgrade your checkout counter: the Clover Station Pro and Clover Flex LTE Version 2!

As a result of state and local government guidelines, brick-and-mortar businesses are beginning to reopen after being shuttered for weeks or even months. Accordingly, many business owners are shifting to a more positive attitude—one of hope.

Still, some anxiety remains over what the future will bring and what a normal business day will look like. You may be experiencing some uncertainty and confusion over what’s expected of you as a business owner.

With their sleek design and powerful restaurant POS capabilities, Clover’s lineup of smart terminals are the perfect solution for food services businesses. And now, in addition to their powerful tools for managing on-site restaurant orders, Clover is offering its Online Ordering Solutions so that businesses can start accepting food orders online with ease!

At a time when more and more customers are opting for food delivery or takeout, Clover Online Ordering is truly a quick and easy way to appeal to these new preferences. Plus, it’s completely free for all merchants who use the Clover Station countertop device!

The COVID-19 pandemic has completely disrupted usual business practices and consumer behaviors, leading to a tremendous increase in chargebacks—and if you’re a business owner, it’s likely you’ve experienced this firsthand. While the travel and hospitality industry has been hit particularly hard due to increased travel cancellations, it’s certainly not the only industry that’s experiencing an increase in chargebacks: other factors such as inventory issues, shipping delays, and a spike of ‘friendly-fraud’ chargebacks filed by cash-strapped customers have affected merchants everywhere.

In this article, we’ll dive into several key factors that are contributing to the chargeback explosion during COVID-19, and share some practical steps that merchants can take to reduce negative outcomes. Plus, we’ll discuss some unique and timely circumstances in which cardholders actually do not have the grounds to dispute transactions.

Back in 2015, the card brands began requiring U.S. businesses to upgrade their point-of-sale equipment to support the processing of secure EMV chip-card technology. Once this requirement went into effect, merchants who supported EMV payments in their stores were no longer liable for costs incurred by fraudulent EMV transactions.

However, this liability shift in 2015 did not apply to gas stations, since the card brands knew that replacing gas terminals with EMV-ready equipment would be much more expensive and complex. Fuel dispensers were given until October of 2020—that is, until recently. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the four major card brands—Visa, American Express, Discover, and Mastercard—have all postponed their planned EMV liability shift for gas stations to April of 2021.

Consumers are rapidly changing their shopping patterns to stay as safe as possible during the coronavirus outbreak, and one way they’ve done so is through the use of contactless payment methods. In fact, Mastercard reported a 40% jump in contactless transactions during the first quarter of 2020! This new payment preference has been spurred on by recent recommendations from leading organizations like the World Health Organization as well as local governments like the State of New Jersey that have signed executive orders mandating that businesses arrange for contactless payments when possible.

The leading e-commerce platform, Magento, will be sunsetting Magento 1 this coming June—and in order to avoid security risks, PCI noncompliance, and other issues, users of Magento 1 will need to upgrade to Magento 2.

Here’s everything you need to know:

To support our brick-and-mortar merchants and their customers during the coronavirus pandemic, we are now reselling APG Cash Drawer’s Guardiant Countertop Shield, a durable plexiglass screen that can be easily installed at the point of sale in order to reduce the spread of contagious airborne viruses and bacteria. The perfect solution for retail stores, pharmacies, cafes, and medical offices, the Guardiant Countertop Shield will give your customers greater peace of mind and help keep your business that much safer.