Posted on: 13 April, 2002
Author: Gabriel Nijmeh
The Plastic Swipeby Gabriel ... sure that most of us don't really know what happens ... time your swipe your credit and receive purchase ... ugh, credit card ... This is a The Plastic Swipeby Gabriel NijmehI'm sure that most of us don't really know what happens betweenthe time your swipe your credit and receive purchase approval(or, ugh, credit card declined). This is a process that happensmillions of times over during the course of a day and one whichwe take for granted.Let's VISA as an example, although this process works similarlyfor MasterCard. American Express works through a closed loopsystem whereby the company alone authorizes and settles alltransactions directly with merchants and consumers.1. You buy a new pair of fancy shoes for that upcoming dinner partyusing your VISA card.2. The store clerk swipes your card and enters the price. Themagnetic stripe on the back of your card is encoded with yourcard number and expiry date.3. The merchant's terminal transmits the transaction to their bank,electronically imbedding the date, price and merchant informationfor the transaction.4. The merchant's bank sends the transaction details to a VISApayment network called VISANet which links all 21,000+international VISA members. The transaction will now includeinformation about currency and country of origin.5. VISANet routes the transaction to your card issuer which thenchecks that your account is in good standing and that you havethe available credit to make the purchase.6. Finally, the issuer's decision-- approved or declined appears onthe merchant's terminal.At the end of the business day, the merchant submits their VISAsales to their bank. Within 48 hours, the merchant's bank willissue a reimbursement and the merchant's bank submits itstransaction records to VISANet for settlement, and issubsequently reimbursed within 24 hours.Every month, the dreaded card statement is sent out to youdetailing all of your transactions. At this point, the onlypeople out any money is your bank and VISANet. It's now up toyou to pay up or get dinged by those outrageous finance charges.That's it in a nutshell. It happens so quickly and is somethingthat we take for granted each and every time we make a purchase! Article Tags: Merchant's Bank Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com