A clearinghouse has the following position among its related entities.
People take their cards from banks and board public transit, paying
for their fares with bank cards. The fares go to the clearinghouse,
which either is an acquirer or sends transactions to card networks via the acquirer.
Information exchanged between the various entities are in the form
of messages. Transmission is encrypted and sent via virtual private
networks linked through the Internet or leased lines as necessary.
All the programs and operating systems are language-independent
and conform to generic standards. Further, the computer equipment
may be purchased from generic dealers; only the gates and fareboxes
are custom-made.
Walkthrough
Let’s follow one transaction from start to finish. The customer
brings her transit credit card near the antenna mounted on a subway gate or bus farebox.
The card terminal reads data off the chip in the card, checks the card number
against a negative list, computes the fare and records the details
of the transaction, and opens the gate. The transaction data is transmitted
in batches to the transit agency’s
central computer. That machine in turn batches the system’s transactions and sends the data to the clearinghouse.
The clearinghouse sorts the data into credit card-based transactions,
e-purse transactions, and any other transactions. It then sends bankcard transactions to the acquirer. The acquirer then sorts
these transactions into batches according to card type and transmits each batch to the appropriate network for settlement. The banks receive payment and then send the funds in various splits and
formulas to the transit agencies, and the other parties involved.
Team Members
Clearinghouse: Speacq Our
job will be to:
receive transactions from the central server of each
transit agency (which in turn receives transactions
from card terminals)
convert the day's fares to bank protocol and transmit them for
payment
compile a negative list update and transfer it
to the local servers
provide daily, monthly, annual accounting and reporting
Bank or Issuer
The bank's or issuer's job is to:
issue contactless credit or debit cards to their
customers who request them
forward payments to the transit agencies and the clearinghouse
market the product
receive transactions from the acquirer daily and debit them to
customer accounts
issue statements monthly to card customers
field customers' complaints and questions about their use of
the cards
Chargebacks are minimized through our patented negative list check.
