SAN DIEGO, CA – The Current State of Billing seminar at Cybernet Expo started off with the timely announcement of YNOTBob’s new position as president of YNOTPayment. Moderated by Mitch Farber of Netbilling, the Billing panel consisted of Ron Cadwell from CCBill, Stephane Touboul of ChargeMeLater, Clay Andrews from Epoch/Paycom, Rand from Universal Processing and Markus Tarrara from Enterpayment AG.Touboul addressed the problems inherent to online billing, the legal issue of accepting a credit card transaction without having a verifiable identity check. “There is always a possibility of identity theft and fraud with online processing,” he explained. “One of the benefits of a company like ChargeMeLater is the express verifiable authorization process that we have in place where the purchaser has to call to identify themselves in order to transact.”

Moderator Mitch posed a question to the panelists about offshore processing versus processing in the US.

Rand mentioned that there are many different ways of processing credit cards online, but “most webmasters will want to work with a platform like CCBill or YNOTPayment, perhaps until they get big enough that they want their own merchant accounts or start to look at offshore banks.”

Cadwell mentioned that it would depend on “where you and your business are located.”

Mitch turned the topic to fraud, friendly fraud and ways of avoiding chargebacks.

“Charge backs are the Achilles heel of online credit card processing,” commented Rand. “They are inherent to our business, but the number one way to counter charge backs is to have robust customer service.”

All were in agreement that risk management has to be taken seriously and that it is important for webmasters and company owners to be proactive in monitoring their data.

“If you’re not monitoring your data, you’re vulnerable,” added Andrews.

A question from the audience turned the topic to the application process for each of the companies represented on the panel.

Both CCBill and Epoch/Paycom offer online application forms, but have restrictions on what regions they accept. ChargeMeLater also has an online application, and does not have any restrictions by region. Universal Processing’s application process is more lengthy, requiring a look at the applicant’s business model and evaluation process. The application for Netbilling also takes a little longer to get through the registration process and setting up of a merchant account.

The application process for YNOTPayment, as explained by Tarrara, is detailed and necessitates a look into the applicant’s financial history. “In order to filter out the bad merchants from the good ones, we look very closely at our applicants, like a piece of the puzzle to see if it fits with us.”

The last question put to the panelists by the audience concerned the possibility of an online “Interac” system, where purchasers could transact directly from their bank accounts. The answer seemed to disappoint, as explained by Andrews. “The banks won’t allow it.”