actinic payments
how it works
Actinic Payments is an online credit card processing system (otherwise known as a Payment Service Provider or PSP) that provides a secure payment gateway to your acquiring bank. Actinic Payments provides the link between your website and your acquiring bank and passes information between the two, including results on authorisations and security checks.
Your buyer enters their payment details into the Actinic Payments ecommerce credit card processing system, which passes these details to the banking network. Actinic Payments then receives details of whether the payment was authorised or not, and the results of any automated fraud checks. The success or failure of the payment is then passed to your web site and recorded against the order.
How to sign up for Actinic Payments credit card processing:
First, contact your bank and do two things:
- Check whether your current merchant account can be used for internet payments (some banks require a separate merchant account for this)
If you do not have a merchant account, see our Guide to Obtaining a Merchant ID
- Tell them that the account will be used with the Creditcall payment system
Next, call Actinic Sales on 0845 129 4800 and sign up for Actinic Payments.
Actinic Express: For instructions on enabling Actinic Payments, click here
Actinic v9 or v8: Actinic Payments requires either Actinic v9.0.2, or Actinic v8.5.3 with the latest Payment Gateway upgrade. To add Actinic Payments as a secure payment option, do the following:
- From the Settings menu, select Business Settings
- Select the Payment and Security tab
- Click '+' next to Payment Method. A new line will appear in the Payment Methods table
- From the drop-down menu in the new line, select 'Actinic Payments Ecommerce' (to use Actinic Payments for online transactions) or 'Actinic Payments CNP/MOTO' (for mail order / telephone order payments; Actinic Business, Business Plus and Enterprise only). You can install both.
- Click 'Configure Method'
- Enter the PSP settings provided by Actinic (under 'Terminal Info for Ecommerce' and / or 'Terminal Info for MOTO' respectively, from the link in your confirmation email)
- Under 'Operation', click the radio button 'Run in production Mode'
- Check that the other settings are the ones you want, and click OK
- Click OK again and Publish to Web (v9) or Refresh (v8)
Actinic Payments can only be used with Actinic ecommerce applications.
Can I tailor the appearance of the payment page in Actinic v8 and v9?
You can make changes to the overall design of the payments page by providing an alternative style sheet. You will need SSL on your server in order to do this. See our Knowledge Base article for details. This will enable you to match the page where the card processing takes place to the overall design of your site.
Which acquiring banks (card acquirers) and which payments cards does Actinic Payments support?
Actinic Payments integrates to all major UK banks, and some minor ones. The acquiring banks supported are listed below along with information concerning:
- Whether a separate merchant account is required for MOTO (mail order, telephone order) / CNP and internet / ecommerce credit card processing
- Whether AVS is supported
- Whether CVV/CV2/CVC is supported
- Whether 3D Secure (Verified by Visa and Mastercard SecureCode) is supported
|
Same Merchant ID/Account for Ecommerce and MOTO |
AVS Support |
CVV Support |
3D Secure Support |
Allied Irish Bank |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
American Express |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Barclays Merchant Services |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Lloyds Cardnet |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Diners |
TBC |
No |
Yes |
No |
Elavon/EuroConex/Alliance and Leicester |
TBC |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
HSBC |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Halifax Bank of Scotland |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Royal Bank of Scotland/NatWest Streamline |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
The following card types are supported with all the acquiring banks listed above:
- Visa
- Visa Debit
- MasterCard
- Mastercard Debit
- UK Maestro (previously Switch)
- International Maestro
- Solo (Mastercard Debit)
- Electron (Visa Debit)
- Visa Delta
- Amex (see below)
- Diners (see below)
To accept Amex you must have an Amex merchant account. Amex Merchant accounts can be obtained directly from Amex and in some cases through the primary acquiring bank although this tends to be more expensive. A separate connection to your Actinic Payments account is required to support Amex. This can be done during your initial Actinic Payments setup, or added later for a small additional charge.
To support Diners you must have a Diners merchant account available from Diners.
The following are not supported:
- Laser, an Irish debit brand (it is supported via Allied Irish Bank)
- Irish Domestic Maestro (it is supported via Allied Irish Bank)
- JCB cards, Ulster Bank and First National are not integrated with Actinic Payments
- Discover (US card only) cannot be accepted through Actinic Payments
