Frequently Asked Questions
Signature Payments’ Knowledge Hub
FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions About Merchant Services
Answers to all your merchant services FAQs.
Merchant Account FAQs
What is a merchant account?
The most basic frequently asked question is also one of the most important. What is a merchant account? A merchant account enables you to process credit and debit cards for your business. When a customer pays for a product or service with a credit card, the funds are first deposited into the merchant account and from there transferred to the business bank account.
How do I apply?
You can apply here.
Do I need a business license?
Depending on your business type and legal entity, a business license may be required. If you are a sole proprietor, you may use either your business or personal checking account.
What if I have less than perfect credit?
Technically, your personal credit score does not affect your merchant account rates. However, your creditworthiness may determine your merchant application approval depending on business type and other factors.
Do I need to enter a contract to accept credit cards?
Once I run a charge, how long does it take for the money to show up in my business checking account?
Can I process with Signature Payments if I am not a U.S business?
You must have a US business address and a US bank account to process with Signature Payments.
What kind of credit cards and payments can I accept?
Fees
What is a monthly minimum?
What are Interchange fees?
What are processing fees?
Another of the most frequently asked question is about fees. Processing fess are the fees charged by the payment processor to the merchant in exchange for card processing services.
How do I review my processing fees?
Support
Can I contact customer support if I need help?
Yes! Our customer support team is available to answer your questions from 6am to 6pm PST. We also have after hours support numbers to assist you outside of those times.
Will I receive a statement?
Statements are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week online at the online merchant center.
Processing Transactions
Can I use a smartphone or tablet to process credit cards?
Signature Payment offers processing solutions that allow businesses of all sizes to accept payments with a tablet or smartphone. You can consolidate all of your payment acceptance methods – cash, checks, credit and debit – into one system that processes transactions through a single gateway, giving you real-time access to all your payments from any location – in-store, online or mobile.
Can I verify credit cards over the phone?
After activation, you’ll be provided with the necessary numbers and instructions for voice authorization approvals when needed.
Do you provide a shopping cart?
We offer solutions that integrate with a variety of shopping carts including Shopify, Ecwid, WooCommerce and Magento.
What hardware do you support?
We support hardware from the top manufactures. For details on the products and services we offer visit our Solutions page.
Terminology FAQs
What is CVC, CVV2 or CID codes?
What is settlement?
What are chargebacks and how will they affect my business?
What is PCI?
PCI stands for Payment Card Industry. The PCI Data Security Standards are payment card network and industry mandated requirements for handling of credit card information, classification of merchants, and validation of merchant compliance. Merchants are responsible for the security of cardholder data for any damages or liability that may occur as a result of a data security breach or other non-compliance with the PCI Data Security Standards.
What is cardholder data?
Cardholder data is any personally identifiable data associated with a cardholder. This could be an account number, expiration date, name, address, social security number, etc. The PCI Data Security Standards apply to all cardholder data stored, processed, or transmitted.