BSG Clearing Solutions (BSG), the leading provider of clearing and settlement solutions for telecom and online merchants, announced the availability of its Advanced Payment Gateway – a combination of three core integrated services: credit card payment processing, Bill2Phone alternative payments and integrated risk management services. The new Advanced Payment Gateway (APGÂ) suite offers online merchants all the means of revenue optimization by expanding consumer reach through Bill2Phone and maximizing all electronic payment approvals through advanced risk management services. Each service is available individually or in any combination of services that meets the merchant’s needs.
The APGÂ suite of services marks the company’s transition from traditional third party billing to a leading provider of payment services for digital content providers – One Provider, Multiple Payment Options. APGÂ provides ecommerce and telco merchants with a single point of integration across multiple credit card acquiring relationships and over 1,400 network operators.
Bill2Phone offers new demographic to increase sales:
The newest service under the APGÂ umbrella is Bill2PhoneÂ, a real-time payment solution that offers online merchants and content aggregators the ability to offer consumers an alternative payment option when buying digital content online – bill to their existing local phone bill. As the industry’s largest clearinghouse, BSG worked directly with the local exchange carriers (LECs) for 2 years on the topic of digital content billing to enable the development of the most efficient and secure phone bill offering possible. Combined with BSG’s credit card processing services, APGÂ gives online merchants the industry’s most flexible and secure, revenue optimized billing options.
Risk Management Services reduce fraud and maximizes positive payments:
A critical component of BSG’s revenue optimization solutions is the Risk Management Service that is fully integrated into APGÂ. BSG’s Risk Management Service is a one-of-a-kind offering that combines leading edge technology, identity validation, and proprietary data utilization that are all precisely tuned by a dedicated analytics team. This customizable risk management system incorporates a powerful anti-fraud arsenal that includes: consumer validation, sophisticated business rules, rules weighting, velocity tracking, IP geo-location, and neural scoring.
Credit Card Payment Processing with enhanced merchant features:
While the trend of paying via a telephone bill will continue to increase over the next several years, credit cards remain the most used form of payment for online content. The integration of BSG’s credit card processing platform into the suite of APGÂ services led to an expansion of merchants’ features and functionality that includes: Virtual Terminal, Recurring Payments, and expanded transaction lifecycle management. BSG has also expanded its acquiring bank portfolio, further diversifying the companies acquiring solutions while providing merchants with more flexibility.
Shared services increases merchant visibility into their transactions regardless of payment type:
Beyond the multiple payment options with integrated risk management services, APGÂ also includes a suite of functionality to enhance payments reporting and provide visibility to multiple transaction types. These services include:
– WebTrack Reporting: Includes reports for full transaction life cycle management and settlement positions to properly manage the merchant’s business
– Real-Time and Batch Interfaces: Common unified interfaces between all payment types in near real-time or batch. APIs are available for recurring billing or single transactions
– Virtual Terminal: Allows merchants to enter or modify a single transaction on behalf of the user
– Recurring Payments: Allows merchants to set up a recurring charge for a consumer with expansive payment options
“Expanding from our established relationships with more than 1,400 LECs and over 20 years of payment processing expertise, we’ve developed a unique Advanced Payment Gateway suite that offers the safest, most comprehensive payment options available for online digital content merchants today,” said Greg Carter, President of BSG Clearing Solutions North America, LLC. “Merchants now have a single source payment provider that packages electronic payments, risk services, data mining, and industry expertise that will increase revenue for our customers.”
BSG Clearing Solutions Launches Bill2PhoneÂ, Revenue Optimization for Digital Content Merchants
BSG Clearing Solutions (BSG), the telecom industry’s leading clearing and settlement provider, announced the availability of Bill2PhoneÂ, a real-time payment solution that offers online merchants, content aggregators and e-wallet providers the ability to process electronic payments to consumers’ local telephone bill. Bill2Phone includes risk management, advanced transactional and settlements reporting, recurring payments and a virtual terminal. Since its availability on January 15, 2007, BSG has closed five new Bill2Phone customer contracts.
With over 1,400 LEC billing partnerships, BSG’s Bill2Phone gives merchants expanded consumer reach with access to over 140 million local telephone bills. Online merchants will also be able to expand their customer reach demographics by providing Bill2Phone to new consumers that don’t have, can’t have, or don’t use credit cards. This new demographic allows merchants to optimize their revenue through consumer expansion.
“BSG has taken a leadership position by working very closely with the LEC community and online merchants to ensure Bill2Phone provides the industry’s most secure, convenient telephone billing payment option,” commented Greg Carter, President of BSG Clearing Solutions North America, LLC. “With credit card-like, web service interfaces and competitive prices, merchants can now easily add this unique payment solution to their shopping carts, thereby opening up new customer demographics, realizing purchasing uplift, and providing a world class buying experience.”
According to the Yankee Group, 40% of the population using the Internet does not have credit cards, and in a study conducted by Internet Retailer, 78% of consumers said “they would be more inclined to purchase online if given a safer, more convenient payment method than a credit card.” Not only can the Bill2Phone increase customer satisfaction by offering a safer alternative, but it can also reduce checkout abandonment for the merchants by offering a non-credit card payment solution.
As part of BSG’s Advanced Payment Gateway (APGÂ), Bill2Phone shares the same high-availability architecture and PCI compliance features of BSG’s credit card processing and acquiring solutions. The feature set is designed to make it easier for merchants to accept multiple payment options and use a single payments processor for Terminal Services, Real-Time and Batch Processing, Reporting, Recurring Billing, Risk Management and more. Bill2Phone features include:
– E-Statements: Emailed statements of all purchases made in a given day helps the consumer accurately keep track of spending on the telephone bill
– E-Mail Purchase Confirmations: Available to merchants who would like their customers to receive a confirmation of goods just purchased
– Virtual Terminal: Allows merchants to enter or modify a single transaction on behalf of the user
– Recurring Payments: Allows merchants to set up a recurring charge for a consumer with appropriate notifications
– URUÂ Authentication Services: Verifies that a consumer is who they say they are and are authorized to purchase
– WebTrack Reporting: Includes reports for full transaction life cycle management and settlement positions to properly manage the merchant’s business
– Real-Time and Batch Interfaces: Common unified interfaces between all payment types in near real-time or batch to simplify usage and match merchant requirements. APIs are available for recurring billing or single transactions
– Risk Management Solutions: Optional fraud management controls, analysis and models to maximize profits and reduce risk
Bill2Phone also includes BSG’s URUÂ, from its Risk Management solutions. BSG’s fraud solutions can provide the following: Balance Management Authorizations, Real-time Authentications using any of the following databases: (LEC databases, credit bureaus), LEC specific authorization types like BillBlock, the largest phone number-based negatives database, fraud monitoring with advanced heuristics and merchant specific transaction analytic modeling.
About BSG Clearing Solutions
BSG Clearing Solutions is a leading global provider of clearing and settlement, payment services, and financial risk management solutions for communications service providers. The company processes over 20 billion transactions annually for 750 of the world’s largest communications companies throughout North America, Europe and Asia. With a ubiquitous, scalable platform and an extensive portfolio of clearinghouse services for fixed-line, wireless, Wi-Fi, and broadband networks, BSG monetizes network transactions by facilitating the financial exchange of its customers’ services. BSG meets the needs of today’s complex network interconnections and anticipates the requirements of converging technologies, allowing for rapid and reliable deployment. BSG Clearing Solutions is an operating subsidiary of Billing Services Group Limited, which is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange (AIM) under the ticker symbol BILL. For more information, visit www.bsgclearing.com.
