Credit Card Pinpads and Pin-Debit Processing

A credit card pinpad is a keypad device that is attached to a credit card terminal that will allow a businesses customer to enter their pin number when the business processes their debit card. This type of system using a pinpad is called pin-debit. Pin debit can be a great money saving system for many businesses.

Pinpads are relatively low cost devices that can save a lot of money over time. From recent studies, pin-debit transactions have surpassed cash transactions, in the most used single transaction type. When a customer uses a pinpad the money is removed directly from their bank account and transferred to the business that they are paying.

Benefits of Pin-Debit Processing

• Cheaper than processing credit cards.
• Customer cannot make a chargeback.
• Process transaction just as fast as a credit card.
• Pin-debit transaction are more secure than credit transactions.

The only thing you need, to process pin-debit transactions is a credit card terminal, a compatible pinpad, and for your processor to setup a pin-debit application on your credit card machine. Unlike credit transactions, pin-debit transactions normally have a single flat rate per transaction fee, normally around $.50 / transaction. No matter how large a purchase, you only pay the flat rate transaction fee. This can translate into thousands of dollars of savings per year in processing fees, for businesses with high transaction volume or high ticket sizes. When a transaction is processed using the pin-debit system, the customer looses their right to make a chargeback for almost every reason. Since the customer's Pin number, which only they know, is used to process the transaction, there is much better security for the merchant and the customer.

The Cost of a Pinpad
Pinpads are available for almost every credit card terminal. Generally you will want to buy the brand of pinpad that matches the brand of credit card terminal you are using. Nurit pinpads work with Nurit terminals, Verifone with Verifone, etc.

There are 2 types of pinpads commonly available; counter-top, and hand-over. Hand-over pinpads are smaller pinpads attached to a cord that you can hand to your customer. Counter-top pinpads are counter mounted pinpads that often have built-in card readers. Counter-top pinpads are commonly seen in grocery and department stores, and look like a credit card terminal. Counter-top pinpads are more complicated and more expensive starting at around $200. Hand-over pinpads are much cheaper and normally start at about $80.

Your pinpad with also need to be encrypted by your processor, which will normally cost an additional $30 - $50.

Popular Counter-top Pinpads
Verifone 2000
Verifone Everest Plus

Popular Hand-Over Pinpads
Verifone 1000SE
Hypercom S9
Nurit 222 Pinpad
Nurit 292 Pinpad

Check with your processor to see what pinpads are compatible with your credit card machine. Also check to see what their policy on encrypting and programming your pinpad and terminal is.

The businesses that benefit the most from a pin-debit application are retail businesses with high ticket sizes and businesses with a large volume of transactions per month. Most any business can benefit from pin-debit, but these businesses will see the best gains. Large ticket businesses can often cover the price of the pinpad from savings on a single transaction.

Note: Pin-debit is not available for businesses processing using a wireless credit card machine, or merchants that key in their transaction over the internet or through a credit card machine. The merchant must swipe the card, and the customer must enter their PIN number to process a pin-debit transaction.