Since Thanksgiving is fast approaching, I wanted to take the time to write a thoughtful blog on the subject of working with an Agent for your credit card processing.
I want to preface my writing today by saying that there are many wonderful employees who work in my industry and I consider a lot of them my dear friends. The objective of this article is to explain how agents do business in the credit card processing world so that those who are searching for a provider, can be educated about who is out there and what it means.
To start, an Agent is someone who has a 1099 relationship with their processors. Most people that are doing business like Ark Payment Solutions; they tend to have multiple processor relationships because there is no exclusivity in their 1099 agreements. This allows the agent to have multiple processing choices for their clients and it allows them to seek out the newest technologies that each of the processors are offering to bring value to their client base.
The best example I can give in this scenario is: Working with an Agent is like working with a Wholesale Mortgage Broker. Earlier this year, my husband and I refinanced our house into a 15 year loan. Our Wholesale Mortgage Broker had a relationship with 12 lenders. Why is this important? The reason is because some lenders are stricter than others when it comes to underwriting. In our case, the first lender didn't understand how I was paid. They couldn't understand "lifetime residuals". They tried to categorize my pay in such a way that it was causing the loan to not be done in a timely manner. Very quickly, my broker realized this and placed us with a 2nd lender that approved our loan in one day! This is the same thing that Ark does for its clients!
I have had situations where credit was a problem for a client or perhaps a client had a tax lien, a bankruptcy, a foreclosure or a higher risk type of business. The nice thing about working with a multi-processor agent like Ark is that we can place you with another provider if the first one doesn't want to give you a merchant account, or if their pricing or technology isn't as competitive as another processor out in the marketplace.
Another big advantage of working with a 1099 agent is that we have more control over your account. One of the biggest reasons I started Ark Payment Solutions two years ago was so that I could have more control. For example, we place ALL of our low risk and medium risk clients into a month to month agreement, we will never charge these clients an early termination fee. The processors that Ark uses consider us a partner and they know we can place business anywhere we want, so they work harder to gain our business rather than expect it to only come to them. This has been a game changer for not only our clients but for the processors who want to build their businesses with quality 1099 agents!
At Ark Payment Solutions, we have access to multiple processors so that we can get you the best pricing, service and technology for your credit card processing needs! If you are looking for a detailed analysis and proposal, feel free to email us at info@arkpaymentsolutions.com or call us at 702-257-8295. We would love for you to join the Ark Payment Solutions family!