Bank of America Gateway FAQ
Description
What's in this article?
Getting started
- What is a gateway?
A gateway is technology used to allow businesses to accept debit or credit card purchases from customers. The term includes not only the physical card-reading devices found in brick-and-mortar retail stores but also over the phone/mail and payment processing portals found in web-based online shopping stores.
- Why is a gateway used?
A gateway provides an entry point into the authorization host which then connects out to the card brands and debit networks.
- Is using a gateway secure?
Yes, for e-commerce transactions there is encryption between the user’s browser (encode for private use) for exclusive use between seller and buyer for the data submitted at the point of sale. For card present transactions taking place at a brick-and-mortar store there is encryption between the retailer’s point of sale solution and the gateway.
- How is the Bank of America Gateway used by merchants?
The Bank of America Gateway supports a wide array of integrated payment solutions for point of sale, telephone/mail order and e-commerce payment acceptance. Payment solutions that are offered are based upon your business needs; for example, how do you want to accept transactions (card present, card not present, e-commerce)? What industry are you in? Do you have unique needs (e.g., integration to accounting systems, tip processing, etc.)? Integrated payment solutions connect to the Bank of America Gateway which routes transactions requests and responses to and from the payment networks and back to the payment solution.
- What fraud detection tools are available for the Bank of America Gateway, and can they be adjusted for velocity, transaction limits, etc.?
Fraud Management is provided at no extra cost to merchants that process in a card not present environment and can be adjusted for velocity, transaction limits, etc.
- What if I am working with a third-party payment solution vendor and want to use the Bank of America Gateway?
In addition to Bank of America’s support of direct processing solutions, we recognize that you may want to use your own third-party vendor to support your point of sale or e-commerce activities. In these cases, Bank of America can work with you to determine if your vendor is already integrated to the Bank of America Gateway, or we can work with the vendor to integrate their devices and or software to our gateway for payment processing.
Integration
- How can I integrate to the Bank of America Gateway?
Bank of America offers four types of integration methods to connect to the Bank of America Gateway for card not present payment transactions (e-commerce). Each method requires coding development by an integration developer.
- Is there a mobile Software Development Kit (SDK) available for the Bank of America Gateway?
We do not currently offer a mobile SDK; however, API integration to accept payments from a mobile application is possible.
- Is a PHP Software Development Kit (SDK) available for the Bank of America Gateway?
The Bank of America Gateway supports a PHP SDK via REST API integration.
- Can I do a pre-authorization with the Bank of America Gateway E-commerce solution?
Yes. You can configure your integration to do pre-authorized transactions. Online orders often pre-authorize the transaction and then authorize when ready to ship to avoid potential chargebacks.
Transaction management
- Does the Bank of America Gateway support Level II information?
Level II information is supported when using either the Secure Acceptance or the Card Not Present Integration Toolkit method.
- Are international transactions supported by the Bank of America Gateway? Can I take payments worldwide?
Bank of America gateway supports card present transactions using international cards at merchant locations domiciled within the 50 US states and in US territories (E.g., Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands). These cards are accepted as a dip/swipe/tap on your terminal and the transaction will appear on the cardholder’s statement in US dollars. If the transaction must be manually keyed while the cardholder is present, use the Virtual Terminal.
NOTE:
Dynamic Currency Conversion is not supported.For card not present transactions, international credit cards can be accepted by manually keying the transaction into the Virtual Terminal.
NOTE:
For card not present transactions originating outside of the 50 US states and US territories, your website must allow shipping to other countries.