COMMIDEA BUREAU SERVICE
The Commidea Bureau Service is a fast, efficient, secure and cost effective method of submitting your card transactions to your acquirer for processing. In most cases you don't need to think or worry about this as the service is included with all EFT products. It is just the mechanism employed in the background to get your card transactions to the bank and into your account.
The bureau service currently handles over £5 billion of card transactions a year for customers across all market sectors. The bureau service and data centres are fully PCI Standards Compliant.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE COMMIDEA BUREAU SERVICE
- Transactions are passed to your acquirer and into your bank account - no money passes through Commidea
- Supported by WinTI and BatchPro card authorisation software
- Backbone submission system included automatically for all products based on ICP
- Allows set-live of credit card authorisation systems to take place the same day as the installation / setup
- Supported and approved by all major UK acquirers
- Reduces internal IT resource requirements
- Hosted in secure data centres conforming to the latest bank mandated security requirements (PCI)
HOW IT WORKS
If you are using WinTI or BatchPro then you authorise transactions during the day direct to the bank system using either a standard phone line (PSTN), an ISDN line, X.25 or Data Radio Network. These authorised transactions are stored within your WinTI or BatchPro system ready for transfer to the bureau. At a pre-defined time, or manually through the software these transactions are then passed to the bureau via FTP using the 'Funds Transfer' option in the software. Overnight these transactions are then passed into the banks' systems for processing during their overnight run and settlement into your account.
If you are using ICP via XML, Paypage Ocius or other products then the transaction authorisation takes place via the bureau network and the authorised transactions are stored at that time in the bureau data network. Overnight as above these transactions are then passed into the banks' systems for processing during their overnight run and settlement into your account.
ALTERNATIVES
The alternative to using the Commidea Bureau Service for WinTI and BatchPro is to use Direct Submission to your acquirer. This is now usually only appropriate if you are handling many millions of transactions. If you do want to use Direct Submission a project will need to be set-up with your acquiring bank for the implementation. Testing with the bank will need to be carried out and set-live can only take place once this testing is completed and validated by the bank - usually this means at least a two week delay between installation and set-live and a minimum of two days rather than the one for implementation of systems using the bureau service.
