TouchNet Payment Gateway

TouchNet® Payment Gateway™ is a secure and powerful payment engine and transaction manager that drives campus commerce for more than 700 colleges and universities. It handles hundreds of thousands of payment-related transactions each day, securely, efficiently, in real time. Payment Gateway is a secure hub for processing campuswide payments and is the foundation for the entire U.Commerce® commerce management system.

The Most Important Features You'll Never See!

Payment Gateway is not so much "software" as it is "middleware." It acts behind the scenes to connect business applications that accept payments with the networks of payment processors and banks, as well as with the campus ERP system. Payment Gateway does have a web-based interface for setup, configuration, report generation, and other administrative functions (the Payment Gateway Operations Center in U.Commerce Central). However, its primary work is normally hidden from both users' and administrators' views. TouchNet Payment Gateway is a good example of how software can hide complexities in elegant software design.

Think about a simple payment transaction—a student's credit card payment on account, for example. A payment application (such as TouchNet Bill+Payment) works with the Payment Gateway to process the transaction. Payment Gateway retrieves the student's current account balance; reviews the credit card number and type for reasonableness and completeness; contacts the institution's selected payment processor in order to authorize the transaction and encumber funds; posts the new payment to the student's balance on the ERP system student's account; adds the payment to payment transaction history; logs the credit card transaction for later batch settlement; and notifies the original payment application that the payment was successful.

All of this happens blindingly fast. All communications and data storage meet or exceed PCI payment security requirements. TouchNet Payment Gateway coordinates each part of every transaction and synchronizes the various tasks so the right sequence of events is performed and the right information reaches the right point at the right time. A single Payment Gateway can handle hundreds of concurrent requests and thousands of transactions a day without missing a beat! It's amazing, really.

Set The Curve™ for Campus Payments

TouchNet Payment Gateway lets you choose the payment methods you want to offer campus constituents. Optional Payment Gateway modules (you can license as many as you want) support the different payment methods:

Credit Card
Payment Gateway Credit Card software connects you to a credit card processor of your choosing for transaction authorization and settlement. In addition, you get PCI-compliant data security along with full reporting for streamlined credit card reconciliation.

ACH
Payment Gateway ACH (Automatic Clearing House) software lets you accept "electronic" checks online and convert paper checks to electronic transactions. The ACH module includes transaction reconciliation reports; a user interface to enter check information; validation of bank routing numbers; and creation of an ACH Debit Transfer file for your bank.

Durbin Debit
Take advantage of today's new, lower debit card interchange rate to reduce your overall payment processing costs. Payment Gateway Durbin Debit helps you take advantage of a dramatic drop in debit card fees to accept and process both ATM (PIN) and signature debit payments as a lower-cost payment card alternative to credit transactions.

International Wire Payments
Payment Gateway International Payments streamlines the process of receiving payments from international students. It uses a business partnership between Western Union and TouchNet to let students, parents, and sponsors initiate international payments in their local currency via Western Union transfer agents or direct bank wires. When payment is received, it automatically updates the corresponding student account in US dollars.

Campus Cards
In conjunction with business partners Blackboard or CBORD, Payment Gateway Campus Cards lets you offer students the option to make payments using their campus IDs as their payment cards.