Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by mbesto 3170 days ago
This is really interesting, because if I understood it correctly, WePay was basically a layer that sat on top of Vantiv's PayFac and made it easier for businesses (SaaS) to take payments on behalf of many merchants. In other words, let's say you setup a SaaS called "GymSAAS" that billed monthly fees (and took cut of each transaction) and your client was "Globo Gym" . GymSAAS could use WePay to collect the money for Globo Gym, take a cut and then pay Globo Gym every month the remaining amount. Using Vantiv's PayFac, it means you skip the tedious process of assigning a new merchant account for Globo Gym as they get underwritten in the industry of "gyms".

So what does this mean for Chase? Do they gut all of the plumbing out with Vantiv and move it over to Paymentec for processing? Does Paymentec even have a PayFac capability built into it?

2 comments

Great question. I'm curious about this, too. My impression from the way they described what it will become ("WePay and its employees will operate as Chase's payments innovation incubator in Silicon Valley") really makes it sound more like an acquihire or something.
No its not. What you describing is called "collusion fraud" and if caught it can land you/your company on MATCH list.
No, you're wrong. Collusion fraud is (generally) when a merchant uses stolen credit cards to process payments then absconds with the money before the customer disputes the charge.

What the parent is describing is PayFac (payment facilitator) which is where the card network and acquirer are aware of the merchant/sub-merchant relationship. You can determine if a payment is through PayFac by the tell-tale asterisk after the first 2 characters on the statement descriptor. For example, Square transactions process as "SQ*[Merchant Name]"

You are spreading misinformation. Collusion fraud occurs when you are approved for selling ebooks and you endup selling e-cigs, for example. Has nothing to do with using stolen credit cards, which obviously is a crime.

Source: 12 years of experience processing cards in CNP/MOTO environment.

> Collusion fraud occurs when you are approved for selling ebooks and you endup selling e-cigs, for example.

This has literally nothing to do with what I originally posted.

Source: The parent comment.