CASE STUDY: First Atlantic Commerce

The company is well entrenched in the Latin American Caribbean Region (LACR) and together with Scotiabank, has been enabling ecommerce for merchants across the Caribbean for over a decade. Further, in 2009, Scotiabank and FAC joined forces to support 3-D Secure™ for Verified by Visa and MasterCard SecureCode™ for the bank’s e-commerce merchants.

The overall objective of 3-D Secure™ is to reduce fraud through the verification of the cardholder at the time of payment in a ‘Card-Not-Present’ (CNP) environment. When implemented, 3-D Secure™ protects both the online merchant and the bank from the financial losses associated with “I didn’t do it” chargebacks.
The benefits associated with 3­D Secure™:

•  Provides internet merchants with the ability to verify a consumer’s true identity through a secure, non “face to face” authentication process
• Enables all parties in an e-commerce payment transaction to transmit confidential and valid payment data
• Provides verification to the merchant that the buyer is the authorized owner of a card account
• Offers immediate protection from fraud­related chargebacks

This service was an important step for merchants in the Caribbean region and assisting them in fraud prevention in a CNP environment.

Business Situation
PriceSmart Inc (NASDAQ: PSMT), an operator of U.S. style membership warehouse clubs in Central America and the Caribbean, turned to FAC in 2010 for assistance with their payment processing across various jurisdictions. They needed a payment solution that could provide securely enabled transactions for PriceSmart members to shop online in the Caribbean.

FAC connected to PriceSmart’s website via an API to provide the company with real-time, online Visa and MasterCard processing in a 3-D Secure enabled environment.

FAC is now providing secure, online payment processing services for PriceSmart in Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados, Aruba, Jamaica and the US Virgin Islands. Funds are settled to PriceSmart’s merchant accounts at Scotiabank in each of these jurisdictions.

Benefits
FAC’s solution provides full redundancy and can handle scores of transactions per second, ensuring all online consumers looking to purchase from PriceSmart can do so easily and efficiently.

The FAC solution has helped PriceSmart maximize sales and minimize fraud risk via a secure online platform. A single simple integration to FAC has enabled PriceSmart to access Scotiabank branches across the Caribbean for full 3-D Secure™ Visa and MasterCard ecommerce processing.

About Tricia Lines Hill

Tricia Lines Hill holds a BA in History & International Development, a Masters degree in International Business, and over twenty years of experience in global marketing, corporate communications and business development. She is Senior Vice President of Marketing & Business Development at First Atlantic Commerce, a Bermuda-based online payment gateway.

 COMPANY PROFILE

First Atlantic Commerce (FAC) is a leading online Payment Gateway and Fraud Management solutions provider. Established in 1998 to create secure card-based payment solutions for e-businesses, FAC’s cGate® technology offers service, flexibility and security to adapt to many business and bank acquirer requirements. FAC provides merchants with multi-currency credit card processing in multiple jurisdictions across Europe, Mauritius and the Latin American Caribbean Region, in addition to alternative payment solutions and fraud mitigation services. FAC also provides banks and gateways with standalone 3-D Secure and AVS services.