ADVERTORIAL
PCI compliant credit card processing customized for petroleum companies While processing transactions and ensuring contracts are faithfully adhered to, fuel and lube distributors must also meet the demands of all of their customers for easy, safe transactions and speedy service. FireStream's PaymentStream is brand new software that allows downstream operators to manage transactions and payment processing in a secure and efficient way. With online bill pay and text-to-pay functionality, PaymentStream furnishes the latest designs of payment options for the modern consumer, and rather than hosting costly and potentially unsecured servers on site, companies can utilize PaymentStream to move financial information and critical credit card data to the cloud. For complete PCI compliance, all credit card-related data is tokenized and kept in hyper-secure vault software in the cloud where petroleum accounting software can access it for transactional purposes without actually storing any sensitive data. PaymentStream is an included feature of FireStream's Ascend Back Office and it also integrates with any other ERP system. The cost-free implementation of this costsaving measure frees up resources so that companies can reduce the number of personnel needed to process payments and handle customer data. Between the customized model of PCI compliance and the savvy functional design of Payment Stream, FireStream has brought the best of its expertise in facilitating operational best practices in downstream and midstream petroleum to credit card payment processing. In today's fast-paced, ever-evolving economy, businesses must operate at full capacity at all times. And with heightened
attention paid to cybersecurity and data protection, companies need a diligent and expert provider of credit card payment processing software. PaymentStream utilizes the secure Avatas gateway and promises to pass along the lowest possible transaction rates to fuel wholesalers and retailers. In fact, it was Avatas that spearheaded the victorious lobbying effort against Visa/MasterCard for the groundbreaking congressional legislation which re-classified certain segments of downstream petroleum under the utilities sector, cutting processing fees by 50% and saving the industry more than a billion dollars to date. Unfortunately, unlike PaymentStream, not all credit card payment processing providers pass these savings along to their customers, choosing to instead pocket the difference without any disclosure. Moreover, oftentimes, fuel wholesalers and retailers are working with another credit card payments provider that is simply not taking advantage of every opportunity to get them the best possible rates. The lowest transaction-rateguarantee from PaymentStream provides immediate hard-cost savings to more than 9 of 10 companies over their current providers in the U.S. and Canada. Along with cutting processing fees to the actual minimum, reducing AR staffing hours and trimming the IT burden of maintaining PCI-compliant credit card data security, PaymentStream allows companies' customers to take advantage of a plethora of other user-friendly features. For instance, customers who receive home heating fuel can pay their bills online or they can enroll in text-to-pay billing, whereby they receive an SMS notification of upcoming bills and can FMNMagazine
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simply respond with a four-digit security code via text to pay their monthly balance. This code is linked back to the provided credit card information so that customers no longer have to repeatedly re-enter the same information over and over each billing cycle. As people read incoming text messages within the first minute of receiving them 80 percent of the time, companies that send bills via text have a higher chance of getting their payments on time, which increases capital and revenues and decreases costs associated with collections. Roughly 17 percent of credit cards expire every year, which means companies that rely on automatic billing cycles have to staff personnel to both collect new credit card data and recoup each customer's unpaid balance. Each turn where a customer has to re-up with new credit card information is a chance for them to consider giving their business to a competitor. PaymentStream solves these issues by automatically updating credit cards backed by all major U.S. banks, providing a seamless transition to the new card without any costly and generally tedious efforts to chase down customers for their new information. n
For more information: email marketing@firestream.com