A division of NCR Corporation, NCR Payments is a merchant account provider. It used to provide POS and banking hardware services, but it recently purchased JetPay and added its services to NCR offerings.
This NCR Payments review evaluates the company’s services to help merchants make an informed decision. The company specifically used to deal with the U.S and Canada’s card-not-present businesses. The existing services of NCR complement the services of JetPay, and, together, become a diverse set of offerings.
Services of the Provider
NCR Payments is skilled in its services and deals with online and retail businesses. However, the main focus of NCR Payments revolves around online business. Here’s the review of what the company offers;
Merchant Accounts
With NCR Payments, merchants get an account with complete merchant transaction support plus a unique merchant identification number. As NCR is a direct processor, it does not depend on the terms set by a backend processor. This allows NCR to give more personalized plans to its clients.
NCR deals with all account-related problems and queries itself. In the case of account freeze or termination, customers can expect a quicker and more effective response as NCR is responsible for all services and customer support.
Payment Gateway
NCR offers a proprietary gateway add-on for e-commerce businesses. Its gateway offerings include recurring billing, automatic account updater, level 1 PCI compliance, transaction recycler, and tokenization. There is a lack of information about other features of the gateway. Pricing information is also absent, although merchants are expected to pay monthly gateway charges plus a one-time setup fee based on some sources of information.
Virtual Terminal
NCR is well-known for providing solutions to e-commerce businesses. It is impossible to carry out online transactions without a virtual terminal. NCR Payments offer a thorough virtual terminal to allow merchants to process payments online.
ACH Payments
Like the other merchant account necessities, it also has E-check or ACH payment facilities. But you don’t find enough information regarding them on its website. The website page is all devoted to marketing their services, with minimal information regarding the details of the offerings. Merchants can get a paper check scanner too. Payment options for the scanner include upfront payments or a monthly lease.
POS Systems
NCR was already dealing with POS hardware and software and owned several terminals before it acquired JetPay. Besides offering a branded line of terminals, it has NCR silver software to run on iPads. Furthermore, NCR Aloha is designed to handle restaurant-related payment transactions specifically. You can buy it either through direct purchase or on a lease basis.
Mobile Payments
NCR has NCR Orderman 7 and NCR 7779 tablets to deal with mobile transactions. NCR Silver is another software component of this provider that utilizes an iPad to carry out mobile payment services.
Advanced Reporting Tools
NCR Aloha has helpful reporting tools that review customers’ behavior and analyze labor costs to grow your business with a technical strategy. Additionally, it compares business sales with your competitors. These reporting tools can give you vital insight to grow your business and remove weak areas.
Hardware Kiosks
NCR extends its services to provide robust hardware and software solutions to businesses across various industries. It includes digital banking platforms, ATMs, and Kiosks. Self-service Kiosks are great add-ons for restaurants and food businesses. NCR also produces ticketing machines for airports and stadiums.
Pricing of the Provider
NCR does not disclose any pricing information except for a few offerings, such as their payment hardware. While NCR Payments gives reasons for not disclosing it, the provider does not justify it adequately. They claim that rates are decided after reviewing the requirements of the merchant. However, there is still no reason to hide the breakdown of the fees that may apply.
Customer Support
NCR Payments claims to offer 24/7 service the whole year via telephone and email. The company provides adequate customer service only during business hours because it is outsourced most of the other time. The representatives also attend to queries and responses through social media accounts of NCR like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Users have mixed reviews (mostly negative) regarding support quality and claimed to come across extensive sales pressure while sorting out the problem.
Drawbacks of NCR Payments
NCR Payments doesn’t have a positive rating on BBB’s website. JetPay’s profile also exists on BBB and the corporation’s multiple profiles. They Own a B- rating there, and it is concerning that they hardly respond to the complaints and negative reviews there. There have been nearly ten complaints closed against them in the last three years and five complaints filed in the previous three months. Here are a few negative aspects of NCR based on reviews;
Hardware Failure
Various complaints are filed regarding POS hardware malfunction and difficulty in transaction processing. Several transactions have been dropped due to POS terminal failure. Merchants state that the company doesn’t pay the required attention to the hardware quality.
Account termination Difficulty
Another drawback that causes disappointment in clients and ruins NCR’s reputation is problems with account closing. Users must inform NCR of account closing at least two months before the end of the three-year term. If merchants fail to do that, they are stuck with another year with NCR.
Unresponsive Customer Service
BBB rating demonstrates the unresponsive service of NCR representatives against the reviews and complaints filed against them. Users have a problem with their unresponsive customer service. The two issues above become excessively frustrating when they are not heard correctly.
Opaque Pricing and Contract Terms
The company loses the confidence of users by providing incomplete pricing information. This gives room to NCR to give merchants an unfair deal if they fail to negotiate at the time of signing up. One more drawback is that it automatically renews the contract after three years, which is the contract period. In the case of closing, merchants are required to pay a heavy ETF.
Conclusion
Analyzing the NCR Payments review, you can trust their products. It is the vague pricing information that creates doubts.
JetPay couldn’t maintain exceptional merchant account provider services before. You see the same strategies even after NCR acquired it, and there aren’t many positive changes. Many red flags like overpricing, auto-renewing long contracts, and a penalty in case of account closing make it difficult to recommend to new or small merchants. Although you own large restaurants or established businesses and can handle overpriced services, NCR might make sense. For others, better alternatives are available that support merchants through much better services.
