Discover is on the Acquiring Move and Looking for You

F or a long period, ISOs have been hesitant to pass leads to Discover Financial Services, for fear of Discover attempting to convert their Visa and MasterCard sales to Discover for processing. Now Discover is back, hoping to encourage ISOs to participate in a new sales referral program.

Discover has created a new program for the ISO community called a Referral Acquisition Program (RAP). RAP allows ISOs to fax referrals to Discover Card. Discover then calls the merchant to sign them up, quotes its rates, and finalizes each sale.

We are told that RAP will also provide quick turnaround on merchant numbers. This, of course, will permit the ISO to program their terminals for Discover. Discover says that they will issue a merchant number no later than one business day after receiving the fax from the ISO.

To enroll in this program ISOs can call (800) 347-3062 and provide their Federal Tax ID and their business or personal checking account information. Discover will provide each ISO a unique number to place on each referral fax. Discover will make referral payments in 60 days via an ACH deposit. The ISO will be paid 40% of the $25.00 Discover membership fee “collected” from accounts. Discover notes that the RAP fee will be paid regardless of whether the account uses Discover or not. In addition, Discover will pay $20.00 to the ISO if the account has at least $10.00 in net Discover sales within the first six months.

Let’s hope that ISOs don’t get RAP’d on the head with this one.

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