FSS (Financial Software and Systems), a globally leading provider of integrated payment products and India’s largest payment processor, announced new enhancements to FSS Merchant Hub to maximize the value of the acquirer ecosystem for merchants through support for new transactional journeys and superior merchant service.
FSS Merchant Hub is a unique merchant support system designed for today’s omnichannel payments landscape. An integrated platform that consolidates critical business functions — merchant onboarding, pricing, commissions and fee management, accounting, clearing, and settlement across POS, internet, and mobile channels, FSS Merchant streamlines operations and boosts business efficiencies.
The enhancements introduced by FSS Merchant Hub enable acquirers to:
- Maximize transactions flowing on their network via multiple interchange support.
- Enhance settlement processes to support new payment flows – contactless (tap and pay) transactions.
- Simplify definition and computing of merchant incentives, improving the overall management of incentive programs.
Commenting on the enhancements, N. Sathish, Dy CPO, FSS Retail Payments, stated: “An agile operational backbone – adaptable to market and regulatory forces – is vital for ensuring the visible front-end aspects of the acquiring business run smoothly. The current enhancements introduced in FSS Merchant Hub will help acquirers keep pace with evolving transactional needs, boost merchant service levels, and propel growth.”
The rapid adoption of new payment methods necessitates that acquirers support multiple interchange schemes. The coverage for additional payment schemes – Diners Club International, China Union Pay, JCB, Amex as well as Bahrain BENEFIT allows acquirers to extend a range of retail payment options that seamlessly integrate with core payment systems for settlement. The complete transaction billing, clearing, and settlement are compliant with respective scheme rules and local regulations. Further merchants have on-demand access to relevant clearing and settlement reports for each scheme.
The clearing and settlement processes have been enhanced to support contactless transactions for supported card schemes. Tap and Pay transactions typically have a low-ticket size, and merchant fees and service charges are proportional to the typical value of the transaction. Merchant Hub can identify and pass the information on contactless transactions to card schemes for streamlined accounting, settlement, and reporting.
FSS Merchant supports end-to-end incentives management – definition, payout computation, and clearing. Acquirers can define incentives for cardholders, merchants, and merchants acquiring entities – sales managers, agents, regional sales managers – along with multiple variables – merchant type, transaction type, real-time or batch mode, periodicity, transaction currency, per-transaction cost, minimum and maximum incentive amount.
To reduce the overall cost of ownership, FSS Merchant is now compatible with PostgreSQL. FSS Merchant is deployed at leading Tier One acquiring banks and merchant processors to manage operations globally and currently supports one million merchants. FSS supports in-premise, as well as pay-as-you, grow models bundled with a managed services approach.
