With increasing fraud and heightened customer expectations, merchants need a payment solution they can trust. Giving them the tools to accept digital payments can help them compete in today’s complex payment ecosystem.
This is the market Visa has addressed with the recent reimagining of its well-established Authorize.net platform, one of the most trusted payment gateways for businesses. Authorize.net—already with nearly half a million users and processing $200 billion in annual payment volume—has received a substantial upgrade, giving payment technology partners a powerful tool they can use to become a trusted partner for their merchants.
See the Benefits
Authorize.net’s upgraded platform has launched in the U.S., with more countries to follow, and it brings a bevy of benefits to businesses with simple payment needs. These include an enhanced user interface and improved dashboards for day-to-day operations. It will also support both in-person card readers and tap-to-phone technology.
Additionally, artificial intelligence (AI) will play a larger role across the platform. Included in the new features is an AI agent that provides around-the-clock support with a conversational interface to answer questions quickly.
For example, if a merchant has a question about a transaction, Ask Anet can often answer it based on frequently asked questions. It can also connect them to a human when more complex guidance is required. All in all, the platform’s AI features help merchants speed up their workflow and streamline operations.
Improved Workspaces
Authorize.net’s updated interface introduces five new workspaces that merchants can leverage for a variety of functions.
The customer workspace allows merchants to onboard new customers, add their payment and shipping details, and manage key aspects like transactions, subscriptions, and refunds for existing customers. This intuitive setup reduces the time spent searching for features and information, boosting efficiency.
The payments workspace enables payment acceptance—including credit cards and eChecks—through a streamlined virtual terminal and the creation digital invoices as well as management transactions. It also allows merchants to add a simple checkout button to websites and manage recurring billing for subscriptions.
In the reports workspace, merchants can access detailed insights into operations, such as settled credit card transactions and stored card details that were automatically updated over the past month if they’re using Authorize.net’s customer information manager and account updater tools.
There is also an account workspace, where merchants can view profile and business details, manage billing status and payment information, and review their Authorize.net users. You can also manage account and API settings in this section.
Finally, the marketplace workspace lets merchants activate additional Authorize.net products such as the customer information manager tool, which stores sensitive payment information in compliance with PCI DSS regulations.
Other add-on services in the marketplace include Authorize.net’s automated recurring billing software for subscriptions and account updater, which automatically refreshes stored card data.
More Flexibility
While all these features are powerful, one of the most important aspects of the platform is its flexibility.
“What Visa has done with Authorize.net is say, ‘Hey, we bolted all this stuff on here, but you don’t have to use all of them,’” said Don Apgar, Director of Merchant Payments at Javelin Strategy & Research. “Because some tools are better suited for subscription merchants and some tools are better suited for e-commerce merchants—there are different variations and subtleties in the merchant environment.”
“As a merchant, you don’t have to say, I only have these tools at my disposal—they’re not the best ones, but they’re the ones that integrate with my network,” he said. “Visa has said, ‘You don’t have to go out and spend the money and reinvent the wheel. We’ve integrated all these tools, so you can use all of them if you want or you can pick the ones that have the highest efficacy for your business.’”
Peace of mind is more important than ever, as bad actors now have more sophisticated tools at their disposal that allow them to commit fraud on a greater scale. To help protect its users, Authorize.net offers a comprehensive fraud protection suite that combines customer verification tools with 13 customizable fraud filters, including minimum transaction thresholds. They can also access tools that measure payment velocity, helping them detect suspicious spikes in payments. Plus, merchants can trust that their data is secure, as all sensitive data is stored on Visa’s infrastructure.
The Largest Payments Ecosystem
With a new interface, AI integration, enhanced workspaces, and upgraded services, the new Authorize.net is an impactful platform for both reseller partners and businesses. But these features become even more powerful when backed by the largest payments ecosystem in the world.
Visa’s position as a payments leader ensures that Authorize.net leverages its strength, scale, and security. More importantly, Visa’s payment solutions offer merchants and partners confidence that their transaction data is secure—a hallmark of Authorize.net.
“From an ecosystem standpoint, they’re pretty much the top of the supply chain,” Apgar said. “They control the interactions between the card holders and the merchants through the issuers and the acquirers, so they’re in a position where they want to bring better technology to the market.”
“Now Visa can say, ‘You don’t have to build all this yourself,’” he said. “’Let us bring it to market and use our network. We’ll make a tech investment, and you can leverage it and go out and sell it to merchants. In fact, we’ll help you sell it to merchants.’”
Learn more about becoming an Authorize.net partner or explore payment gateways for businesses.
