First Community Credit Union Merchant Services

Credit & Debit Card Processing

First Community Credit Union merchant services processes all four major card networks: Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover. There's no need to negotiate separately with Amex or opt out of certain card types — your account accepts them all from day one.

Contactless payments process just as smoothly as chip cards. Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay are supported on all NFC-enabled terminals — the same tap-and-go experience customers expect at national retailers. PIN debit routes through major debit networks with separate PIN debit interchange rates, which are typically lower than signature debit for eligible transaction categories.

Pricing is structured on an interchange-plus model for most merchants: you pay the actual card network interchange rate plus a fixed markup. This is more transparent than flat-rate pricing (where the processor pockets the difference when interchange runs low) and more predictable than tiered pricing (where transaction categories are bucketed opaquely). Your monthly statement shows exactly what each transaction cost and why.

Countertop POS Terminals

For brick-and-mortar businesses, countertop terminals remain the workhorse of the point of sale. First Community Credit Union partners with established terminal manufacturers to provide EMV chip, magnetic stripe, and NFC contactless-capable hardware in a single unit. No retrofitting required as payment methods evolve.

Terminal options range from simple standalone units for low-volume operations to full-featured smart terminals with touchscreen displays, receipt printers, and customer-facing PIN pads. Inventory management, tip prompting, table management, and split-payment capabilities are available on advanced models. Terminals connect via Ethernet or Wi-Fi — cellular backup available for locations with connectivity concerns.

Purchase or lease options available. Purchased terminals are yours and not locked to the processor — if you ever change providers, the hardware goes with you. Lease terms are disclosed fully upfront; FCCU does not use lease structures that lock merchants into long-term obligations with buyout penalties hidden in fine print.

Mobile Payment Processing

Service businesses, food trucks, market vendors, contractors — any business that takes payments away from a fixed counter needs mobile processing that actually works. First Community Credit Union merchant services provides smartphone-compatible card readers that handle tap, chip, and swipe transactions over Bluetooth.

The companion app runs on iOS and Android. It handles transaction history, tip adjustment, refunds, emailed or texted receipts, and basic sales reporting — all without requiring a separate tablet register or proprietary hardware subscription. Reader pairs in under 30 seconds.

Mobile processing rates are disclosed and comparable to countertop rates for card-present transactions. There is no "card-not-present" surcharge applied to mobile chip or tap transactions, because the card is present — the terminal is just pocket-sized. Keyed-entry transactions (manual card number entry) do carry a higher rate, which is standard across the industry due to elevated fraud risk.

E-Commerce Gateway Integration

Online sales run through a payment gateway — software that encrypts and routes card data between your website checkout, the card networks, and your merchant account. First Community Credit Union merchant services integrates with major gateway platforms and supports direct API connections for custom-built checkout flows.

Popular shopping cart integrations include WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, and BigCommerce. Hosted payment pages are available for businesses that want to avoid storing any cardholder data on their own servers — the customer enters payment details on a PCI-compliant hosted page, and the transaction result returns to your site. This approach dramatically simplifies your PCI compliance scope.

Recurring billing, subscription management, and tokenization for returning customers are supported. Tokenization replaces stored card numbers with a non-sensitive token — your system stores the token, the gateway stores the actual card data in a secure vault. Returning customers can check out with one click without exposing card numbers to additional risk.

Next-Day Funding

Next-day funding means the previous day's settled transactions hit your First Community Credit Union business checking account by the start of the following business day. Saturday and Sunday batch settlements fund Monday morning. You're not waiting until Tuesday for your weekend revenue.

This is standard for FCCU business members who maintain their merchant account alongside a First Community Credit Union business checking account — not a premium tier or a fee-based upgrade. The integration between your merchant account and your FCCU checking account also means deposits are clearly itemized in your online banking statement with batch reference numbers, making reconciliation straightforward.

Chargeback Management

Chargebacks are an unavoidable part of accepting card payments. A customer disputes a charge, the issuer pulls the funds from your account, and you have a limited window to respond. First Community Credit Union provides a dispute management portal where you can see chargeback reason codes, review transaction details, upload evidence, and submit representment within the required response window.

Common chargeback reason codes — "item not received," "not as described," "unauthorized transaction" — each have specific evidence requirements. FCCU merchant services specialists can walk you through what documentation to gather and how to structure your rebuttal for the specific reason code. Win rates on representment vary significantly based on the quality of evidence submitted. Businesses that respond to every chargeback with organized documentation consistently outperform those that respond inconsistently or not at all.

For information on consumer dispute rights under federal law, see the FTC's guide to disputing credit card charges.

PCI DSS Compliance Support

Every business that accepts credit or debit cards is required to comply with PCI DSS — Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards — regardless of processing volume. Non-compliance doesn't just risk a monthly fee; it creates liability exposure if cardholder data is ever compromised.

First Community Credit Union merchant services includes PCI compliance support in the merchant program. At annual renewal, you'll complete a Self-Assessment Questionnaire (SAQ) appropriate to your processing environment — the SAQ type depends on how you accept cards and whether you store cardholder data. Most merchants qualify for the simplest SAQ types when they use hosted payment pages and tokenization. External vulnerability scanning is included where required by your SAQ level. FCCU staff can help you understand which SAQ applies and flag common compliance gaps before they become problems.

How FCCU Rates Compare

Square and Stripe charge flat rates: typically 2.6-2.9% + $0.10-0.30 per transaction for card-present and card-not-present sales respectively. For low-volume merchants processing under $5,000/month, flat-rate simplicity often makes sense. Above that threshold, interchange-plus pricing almost always delivers lower effective rates because the processor's markup is transparent and applied on top of actual interchange — which averages around 1.5-1.8% for most card types — rather than a flat rate that the processor profits from when interchange runs low.

First Community Credit Union merchant services uses interchange-plus pricing for qualifying merchants. Monthly statements show your actual interchange costs, the FCCU markup, and network fees separately — so you can verify you're being charged exactly what was disclosed.