OPW INTERVIEW - Nov 17 - We interviewed Patricia Weber, the VP of Optimal Payments. There are many payment processing options available for online dating sites. We’ve reviewed all the major providers of mainstream, alternative and mobile payment processing in our payment processor spreadsheets, which are available to you by emailing me at mark@courtlandbrooks.com. Optimal Payments (a Courtland Brooks client) provides debit and credit card processing, multi-currency payment processing, ACH and industrial strength fraud controls. - Mark Brooks
Tell us about Optimal Payments
Optimal Payments has been a trusted online payments solutions provider for more than 12 years. We are a provider of secure online payment solutions servicing e-commerce and MOTO businesses around the world. We understand that online payment processing is more than just merchant accounts. We have the latest gateway technology as well as the right tools to help them mitigate the risks of accepting online payments that are associated with their industry. While we work with all types of ecommerce businesses we have developed an expertise in the dating, social applications, and online games markets, providing a one-shop-stop for all their payment processing needs.
What are the ranges of services you offer?
We have very limited engagement with third party vendors. With our worldwide banking partners, we can provide merchants accounts to all businesses regardless of their location. As part of our offering, merchants utilize our proprietary gateway which supports alternative payments, multi-currency and recurring billing, a full suite of built-in proven fraud mitigation tools, chargeback management, dedicated account managers, and we have an a team that helps merchants manage risk exposure. We also provide a unique service in that we can lower a merchant’s processing costs by routing transactions in the processing network to the lowest cost provider. Our platform is packed full of features, and we don’t charge add-on fees to use them.
How can Internet dating companies benefit from your services?
Dating merchants typically look for more of a partner than just a merchant account provider. They want a company who is going to look out for their business on a day to day basis such as; help with risk management, advise them on changes to industry regulations, and a provider who updates their technology to meet the demands of the changing payments environment. We bring all that to the table and more; if our clients do well, so do we.
Optimal runs its own secure proprietary online payment gateway. We are Level 1 PCI-DSS compliant and our data centers are fully redundant. We are continuously evolving our gateway which processes credit and debit cards as well e-cash and e-wallet transaction around the globe.
Integrated directly into our gateway is a sophisticated risk rules engine that has extensive fraud detection and prevention features including things like credit card AVS and CVV validation, negative list verification, Geo-IP address location checking, Issuing Bank BIN number country matching, velocity checking, telephone number verification service.
One of the interesting features we have developed is the ability for the merchant to create complete customer profiles. Merchants can not only capture general consumer information, but they can build a multi-dimensional billing profile where a merchant can have multiple credit and/or debit cards stored, a token assigned and alternative payments such as an e-cash set. These can all be set to run on a recurring billing schedule.
Of course our gateway also includes a user friendly virtual terminal where merchants can process, pre-authorize, authorize only, capture, reverse, and refund individual transactions. Also very useful to merchants is the gateway’s extensive reporting capabilities. Merchants can run Activity Reports, Transaction Reports and Batch Reports. All can either be customized or run on a schedule. Everything is web based and reports can be delivered in many formats.
At Optimal we have a three pronged approach to Risk Management. One, we can offer assistance to merchants in becoming PCI Compliant. As you know it is mandatory for all merchants accepting or processing credit cards. We help our merchants throughout the entire process. Two, as we mentioned before our gateway has extensive consumer fraud detection and protection features to help merchants minimize their losses. And third is our ability to help merchants with their chargeback management.
What about alternative payment methods?
We offer both an e-wallet and e-cash payment solution. Our e-wallet product is called Get2Pay. Get2Pay is a virtual prepaid MasterCard and e-wallet that can be used to make online purchases. Consumers sign up at get2pay.com and funds can be added to the virtual card. It can be used on any site that accepts MasterCard. Our gateway fully supports this product and online dating merchants can accept Get2Pay by adding it to the payment type drop-down menu. We also offer Get2Pay as a solution for affiliate payouts. Funds can be easily loaded to the e-wallet by the merchant and converted to a physical MasterCard.
Are you working with any Internet dating firms now?
We work with many very well established dating firms. We have many more that we are working with to develop and implement complete online payment processing solutions.
From your experience, what are some of the challenges the Internet dating industry has in regards to processing?
The biggest challenge is for merchants to find a single source provider where they can get everything from one trusted supplier, merchant accounts, payment gateway, risk management and alternative payments.
What about new developments, technical or otherwise at Optimal, are there any on the horizon?
We are continuously evolving our gateway to ensure it supports all the current and new online payment methods. We just finished launching ELV direct debit in German and we are actively working implementing more e-cash and e-wallet solutions, mobile payments and micropayments.
