CARD PRESENT
A card present transaction takes place when a credit card or debit card transaction is conducted face-to-face with a merchant, in which the cardholder is physically present and therefore his or her card is seen and swiped.
Merchants that process card-present payments include grocery stores, department stores, fast-food restaurants, movie theatres, etc. Card payments where cardholders use unattended point-of-sale terminals, such as gas stations, are also defined as card-present transactions.
A typical face-to-face card acceptance procedure goes through the following stages:
- The cardholder and/or the sales person swipes the payment card through a credit card terminal.
- While the transaction is being authorized, the salesperson examines the card to make sure that its security features are valid and have not been altered.
- Once the transaction authorization is received, the cardholder's signature is obtained on the sales receipt or digital signature pad. New Signature Not Required options are also available for some merchants.
- Once the receipt or digital signature pad is signed, the sales person compares the signature provided by the customer with the one on the back of the card. Also, the salesperson should compare the account name and number printed on the receipt to the ones on the payment card.
If the transaction is legitimate, the receipt and the card are returned to the cardholder, along with the purchased merchandise to complete the card acceptance cycle.
Credit Card Rate Categories
Credit card rates are typically broken into two categories: Card Present and Card Not Present. Card Present is the instance where the payment card in a sales transaction is physically swiped through a credit card terminal. The lowest rates are typically applied to card-present transactions. NDMS base rates for Card Present are only 1.59%.
