By decoupling merchant rule processing from the acquiring channel, the Distra solution provides the ability to service present business requirements and rapidly onboard new acquiring business across emerging channels.
The solution abstracts the business entity merchant from the physicalities of the acquiring terminal or device so as to share merchant business processing rules and configurations across the different acquiring channels. The same merchant is able to directly drive POS Devices and acquire transactions through a merchant gateway, sharing common business rules and processes.
Where the Switch manages a terminal device, the device is assigned to the merchant and configuration data exists across this hierarchy and enables the switch to access both merchant and terminal specific configuration during processing. This feature enables general or default processing to be assigned and applied to the merchant, along with channel specific rules to be applied only when transactions are received across that channel.
For example, a merchant may have an overall transaction limit for all transactions along with a specific limit for each channel. The Switch would ensure that both limits are satisfied and reject transactions on a specific channel that exceed the channel limit but may well be within the overall merchant limit.
The solution provides merchant level business rules and configuration as follows:
- Transaction acceptance rules which govern what type of transactions are accepted for that merchant and the circumstances under which they are accepted
- Merchant fees and surcharges
- Limits which apply to the accepted transactions
Additionally, other rules are applied such as the merchant's status and how settlement is to be processed for this merchant.