Merchant Services

AurorA guests on RAG-TV

July 2, 2020 By Timo

Timo appearing on RAGTV S2E1 — Timo on RAGTV S2E1 with hosts Eric Priezkalns and Lee Scargall

On Wednesday, June 17, 2020 I had the honour of appearing on the opening episode of Season 2 of RAG-TV, the online streaming show of the Risk and Assurance Group. Their virtual conference in May was seen by over 2,000 telecom industry pros in over 93 countries ! Read more about that here and here.

RAG ia an association for telco professionals involved in all aspects of Revenue Assurance; fraud management, enterprise risk management, law enforcement liaison, credit risk, market assurance, capex analysis and security. Actually, association sounds too stuffy, a club is a better description. A club of like minded telecom fraud and risk managers wanting to get better and improve.

Commsrisk described the episode like this
“Telcos come in all shapes and sizes, from the hundreds of millions of customers served by an Indian mobile network like Jio, and the extensive multi-country operations and carrier function of a group like Vodafone, to telcos that serve tiny island nations and small, focused international carriers like AurorA International Telecom, based in Waterloo, Canada. They all need to work together in order to connect phone users whilst fighting the rouge elements that plague our industry.”

“AurorA’s Timo Vainionpää and LATRO Services’ Donald Reinhart were the guests for the first episode of the new season of RAG Television, giving me the opportunity to ask them about the factors that encourage bypass fraud and what can be done to identify and compete with gray routing. Watch the replay of the show below.”

RAG TV

Watch here !

Filed Under: Consulting, Fraud, Merchant Services, OTT Apps, Quality, Regulatory

2020 Redux

May 5, 2020 By Timo

Photo Credit ; Carmi Levy, @carmilevy more at http://writteninc.blogspot.com/

Back in early January, I wrote a post on my 2020 vision where I focused on a few topics I thought would be of importance in the New Year. My goal was to avoid the dreaded Top 10 list of predictions by providing more substance.

Back then we were all quite innocent and unprepared to imagine a global pandemic and what our collective human response to it would do to our lives. So I thought I would revisit the trends I identified to see how well they held up over four short months. Then try to look forward to what the rest of this year might bring, especially as we begin to restart the economy as we inevitably come out of self-isolation and lockdowns.

Telecom Fraud
Well, did I ever nail THAT one on the head. As we have been forced to self-isolate and work from home, the hackers, cheats and swindlers have been out in full force. Traffic on telecom networks both here in Canada and globally have skyrocketed but there has also been more and more attacks on telecoms. Traditional fraud schemes such as Wangiri fraud and the related International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF) are up dramatically. This has been a major point of emphasis for AurorA since fraud mitigation is a key part of the added value of providing premium voice termination. The AI based fraud tools that we use have saved tens of thousands of dollars of catastrophic losses for wholesale customers and their retail and commercial customers. This trend shows no sign of abating and will continue throughout the rest of the year.

The Decline of Voice
I missed this one badly. My basic premise, supported by the traffic numbers, was that voice traffic was in a long term secular decline. Who would have forecast that during a pandemic, the killer application would turn out to be voice ? During their isolation, people wanted to reach out and talk to friends, family and loved ones. Voice traffic has skyrocketed, especially to international destinations.

Given that apps such as WhatsApp and Skype are available for free calls, it is interesting that people still rely on the ubiquitous telephone and voice calling. Everyone has a phone, and calling “just works” for everyone. My own feeling is that people prefer the high quality connection that comes from a premium quality phone call. Text (and email) doesnt cut it; it is too cold and lacks nuance.

Recession is coming
Wish I didnt get this right. Recession has come on a whole lot faster than anyone anticipated. The pandemic hit to our economy is huge, the unemployment levels are unprecedented in their speed and depth. The governments have had to spend huge sums to provide liquidity and financially prop up people, families and businesses while we dealt with the pandemic. This recession will be deep, and the length of it is unknown. There is far to much complexity to try and predict how and when we will come out of this recession.

Moving Forward
So, whats next ? What should we be doing as telecom service providers over the next few months when the lockdowns slowly get lifted. How can we prepare for what’s next ? Some of us will be looking simply to survive, others to maintain and still some will be better positioned to grow. I think three potential things to consider are a) controlling costs b) solidifying existing revenues c) looking to add top-line revenue.

For cost control now is the time to tighten the screws on your organization from top to bottom. Examine all costs, especially all S,G & A line items to see where savings can be had. Billing systems, payment services, any form of overhead costs should all be examined and cost savings sought wherever possible. Now is the time to tackle those cost savings projects that we were too busy for before and make productive use of the work from home time.

Maintaining revenues such as voice traffic can be key. Consumers and businesses have rediscovered calling. Promote that service, especially the high quality of your voice connections. Using a premium supplier that protects you from exposure fraud also protects you and your customers from unforseen costs. Be prepared to cement that goodwill that your customers feel towards you right now.

Finally, if you are lucky enough to have been prudent and maintained strong cash liquidity, times of recession can often be times of the best top-line growth. During hard times, business customers are looking to cut costs, and will be more receptive to moving away from their current providers to be able to save money. This is when they will look to competitive suppliers. So have your marketing and especially your front line sales staff prepared for this opportunity. You can attract customers with new offerings too; to increase the value of your bundle how about internet, home phone and asset tracking ?

We will get through this period, we are resilient and we are strong, especially together. As always, Amitel and AurorA are here to help. Reach out to me to have deeper discussions on the above, or any other pain points you may be experiencing. Reach out to me just to talk ! Looking forward to growing together with you in 2020 as we navigate through these unusual and uncertain times.

Your Friend in Telecom

Timo

Thanks to Carmi Levy, @carmilevy for use of his superb photograph. Follow his work at http://writteninc.blogspot.com/

Filed Under: Adventure, Fraud, International, Merchant Services, OTT Apps, Quality

2020 Vision

January 5, 2020 By Timo

The world does not need another blog post about predictions or trends for the coming New Year. Or another Top 10 list. Those are far too common and overdone. For this years first blog post, I thought I would instead focus on a few topics that I see becoming of increasing importance, especially to service providers in the competitive space against Big Telco. You can read about 5G, AI, IoT and other acronyms elsewhere.

Telecom Fraud
The last few years have seen a dramatic increase in fraud on our networks. Hacking by criminal networks is easier than ever and they avoid prosecution by doing it across international borders. The migration to IP networks and softswitches have opened up new avenues fro the bad actors to attack. This trend shows no signs of abating, meaning that as an industry we must put more time, effort and manpower into safeguarding our networks and businesses to avoid catastrophic losses.

The Decline of Voice
Worldwide voice revenues continue to decline. We have highlighted this trend before here. Silicon Valley giants like Microsoft (Skype), Facebook (WhatsApp, Messenger), Apple (FaceTime) and Google have sucked away a lot of the consumer voice and messaging traffic from worldwide networks. As service providers we need to look for other sources of revenue rather than trying to compete for a slice of an ever shrinking pie.

This is where looking at other market sectors such as Enterprises and SMB for growth that are underserved or poorly served by Big Telco come into play. Or looking for markets like International MPLS data circuits or cloud connectivity where Big Telco does not have 90% market share. Finally, the best way to compete against “free” services is not to offer low cost service; rather it is to offer premium, high quality services that Silicon Valley and Big Telco are not equipped to provide. (more on quality here)

Recession is coming
We are now in one the longest, if not the longest, economic expansions in the history of the United States. History has shown that this cannot keep going indefinitely, a recession is coming soon. When the US gets a recession, Canada gets an even bigger one. As competitive service providers we must be prepared for this on two key fronts; expenses and top-line revenue.

Now is the time to tighten the screws on your organization from top to bottom. Examine all costs, especially all S,G & A line items to see where savings can be had. Billing systems, payment services, any form of overhead costs should all be examined and cost savings sought wherever possible.

Top-line revenue ? Here is a counter-intuitive tip from a veteran of many boom-bust cycles. Times of recession can often be times of the best top-line growth for companies like ours. During hard times, business customers are more receptive to moving away from their current providers to be able to save money. This is when they will look to competitive suppliers. So have your marketing and especially your front line sales staff prepared for this opportunity.

I hope these topics gave you few ideas for your business for the coming year. As always, Amitel and AurorA are here to help. Reach out to me to have deeper discussions on the above, or any other pain points you may be experiencing. Looking forward to growing together with you in 2020.

Your Friend in Telecom

Timo

Thanks again to Carmi Levy, @carmilevy for use of his superb photograph. Follow his work at http://writteninc.blogspot.com/

Filed Under: Competition, Fraud, Merchant Services, MPLS, OTT Apps, Quality

VISA; An Overview and History

September 22, 2019 By Timo

Amitel provides merchant service and payment processing through its partnership with Zomaron.
This is highlighted here and I have written blog posts about it here and here.

But have you ever wondered how credit cards ever came to be ? This weekend I stumbled across two fascinating posts in a blog called Mine Safety Disclosures of all places. The first post goes into the history of how credit cards started to help merchants reduce their back office costs to extending credit like they did with installment payments; the second post describes how the VISA system actually works and illustrates how the sausage is made.

Visa is one of the biggest companies in the world. Cards bearing the Visa logo are used more than 340 million times every day. And the Visa brand is one of the most-recognized on the planet. Yet unlike other companies of similar size and ubiquity, few people know what Visa does, how they make money, or why they even exist.

To understand, it helps to look at the company’s history.

http://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2019/5/29/part-l-a-history-of-visa

Visa sits at the center of more than half of the world’s credit card transactions, connecting cardholders (and their banks) on one side, with merchants (and their banks) on the other. Because there are thousands of banks, millions of merchants, and billions of consumers, it would be far too complex for every entity to have a direct relationship with every other entity. So Visa acts as a centralized operator, developing technology, maintaining infrastructure, and setting operating standards for all parties.

http://minesafetydisclosures.com/blog/2019/7/23/part-ll-an-overview-of-visa

Filed Under: Merchant Services

Payment Processing Success Story : Internet Service Provider

August 13, 2019 By Timo

Amitel offers Payment Processing and Merchant Services in conjunction with our partner Zomaron. We are pleased to share this success story from the ISP industry.
Please see our Offer Sheet here.

Start.ca was founded in 1995 and has grown to 160 employees servicing more than 70,000 customers across Ontario. They service both the residential and business communities, supplying fibre, cable and DSL internet, digital phone and TV service to residential consumers, and a full suite of internet and data hosting services for businesses.

Payment processing is a critical component of their business. Most customers pay online, on a recurring month-to-month basis. They have approximately 40,000 charges run at the first of the month. They need to make sure their payment system is secure for the consumer, and payments are processed smoothly and accurately, without any risk to their credit or credit cards.

Prior to making the switch to Zomaron, one of the problems they were having with their previous processor was their inability to support new payment technologies, specifically payment through MasterCard debit and Visa debit, which a lot of customers wanted. Switching to Zomaron made that possible—and made a lot of their customers very happy.

One of the exciting things about Zomaron’s services is the availability of Apple Pay and Google Pay processing. Start.ca expects more and more clients to use mobile devices for payments, and to have that technology piece ready is very reassuring. Ultimately, it boils down to payment diversity, and Zomaron offers that.

As you can imagine, on a monthly basis they have a lot of chargebacks, voids, and payment adjustments that need to be made. With their previous provider, the online portals were cumbersome and confusing. With Zomaron, they have a single portal that is much easier to use, which enables them to solve most of our billing problems on their own. The accounting team loves it.

Start.ca says the customer service they have received from Zomaron has been outstanding. In addition to being able to get support quickly and easily, they regularly receive calls from Zomaron just to see if they need help with anything. This experience has been a refreshing change of pace for them and really shows how important their business is to Zomaron.

Features, functionality and support were our primary reasons for making the switch to Zomaron, but they have also been able to realize a significant savings in our payment processing costs, which was a really nice surprise.

At Start.ca, the vision is to always provide customers with quality service and positive experiences. Both Start.ca and Zomaron compete against the major players in our industries—they have a lot in common that way—and both companies know that having a high level of reliability, great customer service and a wide range of product options are the difference-makers. It’s nice to support another local business, and it’s great to work alongside another organization that shares similar values.

This article originally appeared in London Inc. Magazine Feb 5, 2019

Filed Under: Merchant Services

3 common misconceptions about American Express debunked

July 8, 2019 By Timo

American Express (Amex) has been perceived as a premium card brand for decades with over 140 million users worldwide. Yet sure enough, a majority of Canadian merchants do not accept American Express cards as a form of payment. We spoke with business owners across Canada and below are the three most common misconceptions about American Express debunked and why you should start accepting it today.

Not enough people use an Amex card.
This is a common myth about American Express cards. In fact, Amex is accepted worldwide with over 140 million cardholders, including all across Canada. Amex cardholders spend on average 50% more in-store than any other cardholder. That means that Amex cardholders represent 1.5 people coming into your store. It’s not only bad practice to turn customers down, but to turn down higher-spending customers is a major faux-pas. The Amex cardholder has an annual income 40% higher than the average Canadian and earn some of the best rewards and offers in the credit card industry. They have the money to spend, they are eager to earn their rewards, and your business will benefit from welcoming them.
The cost of accepting Amex is too high.
Historically speaking, American Express credit cards not only had one of the highest interchange rates but also charged merchants a monthly fee for processing Amex transactions. Today, processors like Zomaron (from Amitel) offer their merchants free registration into Amex OptBlue which allows them to accept American Express for no monthly cost and no commitment period. Amex OptBlue also offers comparable interchange rates to other card brands making it more affordable for business owners. As well, Amex does not charge merchants assessment fees or ancillary fees, making the overall cost of accepting Amex not much higher than other card brands. As noted above, these cardholders spend 50% more in store, so unless the fees are 50% higher, then it is still more profitable to accept rather than not. As well, if you don’t want to get lost in the world of interchange rates and assessment fees, it would benefit you to switch to a processor like Zomaron (from Amitel) that charges the same rate for all card types. One flat rate every month so you know exactly how much to pay, no matter what.
Amex does not care about merchants; they only care about cardholders.
In the past, Amex had a reputation full of myths and misconceptions among merchants; some of them include: Amex had funding delays of 3-5 business days making for an accounting nightmare among small business owners; Amex constantly sided with customers over merchants for disputes and chargebacks; and that Amex billed separately for its payment processing fees. Today, with Amex OptBlue and with Zomaron (from Amitel), merchants can take advantage of next day deposits for all card brand transactions and one easy-to-read consolidated statement for all card types every month. And yes, it is no surprise that Amex treats their cardholders with some of the best customer service and premium loyalty offers in the industry. And because they care so much about their users, their cardholders stay loyal to them. Since merchants who accept Amex are still a minority, Amex cardholders are forced to go to businesses that accept it. Therefore, if you accept it, you’ll likely win their business and their loyalty.

Ready to start accepting American Express at your business for free? Contact Amitel to switch to Zomaron today!

This article by Zakry Chami was originally featured on Zomaron Insights +Interactions

Filed Under: Merchant Services