NECN Features Merchant Warehouse President
TOPIC: Merchant Warehouse President Henry Helgeson Appears on New England Business Day to Discuss Credit Card Processing
DATE: May 26th, 2006
TIME: 6:30 PM
STATION: NECN
PROGRAM: New England Business Day
ANCHOR: Beth Shelburne
GUEST: Henry Helgeson, CEO of Merchant Warehouse
BETH SHELBURNE: You will hear a lot more than horn honking this Memorial weekend. The swiping of plastic is practically a holiday tradition. Tens of millions of credit card transactions are made everyday in the U.S.-Visa says it handles more transactions in an hour than all U.S. security exchanges handle in a day, combined, and that’s just VISA®. There are dozens of other credit card companies, all managing billions of dollars in transactions. It’s mind boggling if you think about it. Somewhere, in all that business, are companies that process the information. Boston based Merchant Warehouse is one of them, and Henry Helgeson is the CEO. He is our guest tonight, on New England Business day. Thank you for being here.
HENRY HELGESON: Thanks for having me.
SHELBURNE: You guys started up in ‘98 and the business has blossomed since then.
HELGESON: Thank you, yes.
SHELBURNE: Explain what it is that you guys do.
HELGESON: Sure. We’re the people behind the credit card transactions. We help get the money off your credit card and into the business’s bank account.
SHELBURNE: So, when you swipe your credit card at a store, the data goes to you guys. Is that how it works?
HELGESON: That’s it. We outsource a lot of the technology, but we handle the sales process and get that money securely to the merchant’s bank account at the end of the day.
SHELBURNE: What’s the biggest challenge? Is it security right now? Identity theft is a big problem. Fraud is a big problem. How do you insure that you’re keeping everybody’s information safe?
HELGESON: Sure, well, we’re held to some pretty high standards by VISA and Mastercard®. Actually, tougher than some of the Federal standards out there for data security. So, it’s our job to make sure that none of that gets lost along the way.
SHELBURNE: Yeah, there are so many ways to make purchases these days. I mean, you can purchase things on the Internet, over the phone, through the mail-there’s data floating around everywhere. I mean, specifically, what do you do. Are you encrypting things? How does it work?
HELGESON: We are. When those transactions hit us, there are certain data requirements, or we can’t store certain information, and a lot of it is destroyed right after the sale. But, for the most part, all that data is encrypted at secure facilities around the country, and we hold on to it pretty tightly. We make sure the bad guys don’t get it.
SHELBURNE: What’s the future of your type of business?
HELGESON: Right now we’re pretty excited about some new technology out there: Mastercard Paypass, Contactless payments, the Internet is still growing. We see a lot of growth in the credit card industry right now. We’re just happy to be where we are.
SHELBURNE: All right. Well, thank you so much for coming in. Henry Helgeson, the CEO of Merchant Warehouse, based in Boston. We appreciate it.
HELGESON: Thank you.
MerchantWare Website Launch
Merchant Warehouse Announces Launch of New MerchantWare Web Site
Merchant Warehouse- Boston-based provider of credit card equipment and processing services, today announced the launch of www.merchantware.net, a web site dedicated to the software product MerchantWare.
MerchantWare was developed in March, 2006 to provide POS developers and resellers with a reliable credit card authorization / settlement system which could be easily integrated into most POS software solutions. Using a secure, SSL based, Internet connection, MerchantWARE can deliver payment transactions to most major credit, debit and gift card processing platforms as much as 80% faster than other broadband solutions.
MerchantWare features and benefits include:
MerchantWare also offers one of the most generous referral programs in the country. Our referral partners not only have an opportunity to gain significant revenues from the referred merchant account, but also the satisfaction of knowing they are working with one of the most respected companies in the industry. To learn more about our referral program, please click here.
"We are very excited to launch www.merchantware.net", said Henry Helgeson, President of Merchant Warehouse. "We believe the new site not only has great product detail, but also has great incentives for potential Referral Partners. We look forward to working with POS developers and VARs on this state-of-the-art software product."
For more information on MerchantWare from Merchant Warehouse, please visit www.merchantware.net.
For more information on Merchant Warehouse, please visit our website.