A payment gateway is a software program integrated to a merchant's website to transmit transaction data to the Credit Card acquirer for authorization and settlement. Merchants gain the ability to perform real-time Credit Card authorizations from a web site over the Internet. Customers can pay for purchases across the Internet through Credit Cards within seconds, after the gateway obtains authorization from the Credit Card institutions.

CCAvenue provides complete, simple and secure online payment gateway services and e-business solutions to websites, with real time Credit Card transaction validation. This enables the websites to transact and accept payments online and in real time.

CCAvenue offers you (the Sub Merchant) two web integration interfaces to choose from Variable Amount Interface and Shopping Cart Interface. These interfaces can be seamlessly integrated with the look and feel of your website.

a) Variable Amount Interface: Use this interface if you have already developed your shopping cart and you need CCAvenue.com exclusively for final amount authorization. The customer finishes shopping on your site; and you just forward the final amount to the CCAvenue 'secure server final payment check out' page. Your customer then enters his/her Credit Card selection and shipping information to complete the sale. The full transaction flow from your site to the CCAvenue site to the payment gateway is explained in detail in the image below.

 

b) Shopping Cart Interface: If you have not yet developed a shopping cart for your website or you do not want to spend your precious resources on designing one, then this interface is just right for you. Use the readymade Shopping cart provided by CCAvenue with basic functionality; which can be customized to match the look and feel of your site. At the top of the shopping cart, simply put up your industry standard 468 x 68 banner, customize the background color and fonts to match that of your website, add the links and give it a total look and feel of continuity of your site. On your site, list your product or services and insert an 'Add To Cart' button next to this list. CCAvenue provides these buttons along with snippets of HTML code. Once your customer clicks on the 'Add to Cart' button, he is seamlessly taken to your customized Shopping Cart hosted on CCAvenue's secure server. Here he has the option of paying up and finishing the transaction OR adding more items from your site. Customers can select products for purchase and add them to a virtual "Shopping Cart" on CCAvenue secure server. When he has finished shopping, the customer clicks the 'Checkout' button, enters his/her Credit Card and shipping information to complete the sale. The full transaction flow from your site to the CCAvenue site to the payment gateway is explained in detail in the image below.

No. CCAvenue will set you up with Visa and American Express sub-merchant status.

Currently, we are accepting only Indian Entities.

No, International Merchants do not need to incorporate or set-up bank accounts in the United States or Singapore. We will wire your remittance or payment to your bank account in whichever country you wish.

Yes. We do not offer Internet merchant status for the following:

No. There are NO minimums imposed by CCAvenue.

No. CCAvenue takes down the barriers to your success! There are NO monthly maximums imposed on your merchant accounts.

Yes. We offer payment processing to electronic and physical delivery businesses as well as those selling services and tangible products.

No. You can sell your products or services to any Visa*, MasterCard*, American Express and JCB Cards issued anywhere in the world.

Make the currency decision based on your specific business requirements. Depending on where your target customers are located, you should choose the currency that meets your requirements. Based on our experience, while US customers prefer to shop in US Dollars, Indian client's prefer to shop in INR. Your global customers understand US Dollars best! If you wish to offer INR on your website, you may visit http://www.ccavenue.com/ccavenue_index.jsp and sign up there for an INR account.

No, because Currency Converters are dealing with today's conversion rate but all transactions are actually settled by our banks tomorrow! So in order to be accurate you would have to know the currency rate for tomorrow.

CCAvenue® offers a complete bouquet of major Credit Cards such as MasterCard, *Visa and American Express and a variety of Indian, Chinese and Singaporean Payment Options. Moreover, with the power of U.S. Dollar payment facility on your side, you can now free your website from the restraints of geographical reference points and labels like the First World or the Third World as the case may be. Whatever the size of your e-business, CCAvenue has a solution for you. The CCAvenue system is flexible enough to suit your requirements. To provide you and your customers a secure shopping environment, CCAvenue offers the highest level of SSL encryption. We also provide you with a wide range of customized commercial tools, which enable you to maximize the profitability of your website. Some of these are: SMS Alerts Facility, Auction Collection Feature, Invoice Payment Collection through email. Comprehensive Transactions Reporting and Accounting Merchant Interface with MIS features.

In addition to a complete bouquet of major Credit Cards such as *Visa and American Express , CCAvenue® offers you the following benefits regardless of the size of your e-business:

USD processing:
With the power of U.S. Dollar payment facility on your side, you can now free your website from the restraints of geographical reference points and labels like the First World or the Third World as the case may be.

Weekly Payouts:
We deliver your payout cheque every week. Compare this with a U.S. based payment gateway that takes at least 15 days to deliver your cheque. This means that you save at least 8 days worth of interest on your funds, every week.

SSL Security:
CCAvenue® has implemented state-of-the-art security processes that are currently not available with most US payment gateways. The latest Verified By Visa and MasterCard Secure Code security processes safeguards you from liability from charge backs caused due to `not authorized by customer' situations, which account for as much as 98% of the charge back incidents. Our hard earned reputation and superior business processes has resulted in tie-ups with globally respected banking giants and financial.

A wide variety of useful commercial tools:
We also provide you with a wide range of customized commercial tools, which enable you to maximize the profitability of your website. Some of these are: SMS Alerts Facility, Auction Collection Feature, Invoice Payment Collection through email. Comprehensive Transactions Reporting and Accounting Merchant Interface with MIS features.

Your customer can pay by any of the major Credit Cards such as MasterCard, Visa and American Express issued anywhere in the world. Customers from India or NRIs can pay through a wide variety of Indian payment options - 15+ Debits Cards, direct debit facilities from 30+ Indian banks, cash card from ITZ Cash and mobile payments from Pay Mate and SBI Mobile while customers from Chinese & Singapore can pay through their net banking accounts. Currently, CCAvenue is tied-up with 20 Chinese & 3 Singapore banks.

After you sign up online, our internal business and security team scrutinize your application. This will take a week. On approval, you will receive an e-mail from CCAvenue containing the good news and a link to CCAvenue's payment page from where you can pay CCAvenue's set-up fees by Credit Card. The approval email will also contain a list of documents required by us to validate your business. You will also have to download the CCAvenue Client Agreement , print it and get it signed by Authorized personnel of your firm/company and courier/hand deliver it to Avenues India Pvt. Ltd., Plaza Asiad, Level II, S.V. Road, Santa Cruz (West) Mumbai-400 054, India. We expect that you would complete all of this procedure within seven days of receipt of formal approval from us. Your account with CCAvenue will only be activated on receipt of all of the above. E-mail notification for activation of the account will be sent to the registered e-mail address. CCAvenue follows a policy akin to a bank account. We pay-out all funds over the first INR 1000/- accumulated into your sub-merchant account. We expect you to maintain a minimum balance of INR 1000/- to keep your account going. On closure of the account with us this amount is refundable after 180 days of the last transaction, as this is the period for which a sub-merchant is liable for chargebacks for Internet related Credit Card transactions.

Unlike financial institutions that demand huge upfront fees and lien deposits, CCAvenue's charges are affordable for all types of business.

CCAvenue offers a choice of three schemes from which you can choose:

CCAvenue can provide you with one Merchant Account for each currency. You will need to sign up separately for both accounts - on http://www.ccavenue.com/ccavenue_index.jsp for the INR processing and on http://world.ccavenue.com for USD processing. After activation and integration, your customers can choose which currency they want to buy in. CCAvenue will automatically generate INR or USD online receipts and bills your customer accordingly!

No. CCAvenue cannot run your merchant numbers on our system.

In order to change "Pay to" details, you have to mail the administrator of CCAvenue via the "Help Desk" interface available on the website. You will receive a mail from the administrator as soon as the new "Pay to" details are approved. You have to sign a new agreement for the new "pay to" detail, to take effect. In order to change the "Account type", a Merchant may change/upgrade only from economy to premium type or privilege type (by paying the difference in setup fees) and not vice-versa. The new account settings will reflect as soon as the excess fee payment is cleared and will be applicable from the next weekly payment cycle. The Sub Merchant does not have to make any changes on his site for the new settings to take place. Kindly mark a mail to compliance@ccavenue.com to change the ‘Pay To’ details. To upgrade your Account Type mark a mail to accounts@ccavenue.com.

You may represent your product pricing in any number of currencies. At the end of the transaction when your client has to checkout to the CCAvenue payment option page, we require that the payment amount is in INR equivalent only. This is because we do not process the final payment in any other currency but INR as we are subject to such RBI rules and Regulations. You need not create a different set of shopping cart links.

Example:
Let us assume you are keen to sell a product at US$ 10/- to a prospective US customer and feel that it is an attractive price for your product. So you represent US$ 10 on your web page. When the customer completes his shopping and the data of your shopping cart is to be sent to the CCAvenue pay page you need to ensure that you have converted this amount to INR.

What benchmark to use? No genius in the world can predict at what exchange rate (INR >< US$) rate the end customer is going to get his Credit Card bill as this fluctuates by the minute. So to play safe ensure that no matter what happens the end customer should not see any amount over US$ 10/- on his Credit Card billing statement.

How does one do this?
Lets say the US$ rate today for INR is INR 48.50 = US$ 1. You should take a benchmark of INR 48.0 = US$ 1. Which means that even if the clients' bank is actually using the exchange rate INR is INR 48.50 = US$ 1 the client will only be billed US$ 9.89 / and not the US$ 10/- which he agreed to pay you. (This is arrived at by US$ 10 x 48.0 = INR 480 / 48.5 = 9.89)

Off course you will have to constantly monitor that INR >< US$ rate of exchange and ensure that at any given time the difference parameter is maintained. However one great factor which works in your favor constantly is the fact that the US$ is constantly appreciating against the INR so even if you do not change or monitor your differential factor for small changes you will still land up charging the customer a little lesser in US$ than that he was shown the bill for. However you must also ensure that you do not under price yourself on the exchange rate too much and do upwardly revise your INR calculation if there is a huge jump in the exchange rates, so that this jump can add to your profitability.

Therefore, when you throw the final amount of your shopping cart onto the CCAvenue pay page, you need to convert this amount at a fixed rate into INR and throw the INR amount only. Your buyer from outside India will see the INR amount on this CCAvenue page (which offers multiple payment options). He will also be told that if he wants to view this INR amount in his local currency he could also use the live CCAvenue currency converter link. This would show him the approximate amount in his local currency, which would be billed to his Credit Card statement at the time of that precise particular transaction. Your customer will be billed in his local currency in his card statement.

RBI insists that Merchants in India settle transactions in INR only and the respective banks give a foreign exchange inward remittance certificate (F.I.R.C.), which we (CCAvenue) then pass on to you (Our Sub Merchant). This takes care of the Income Tax part of things, to enable you to claim exports benefits under section 80 HH of the Income Tax Act.

CCAvenue will issue you a FIRC (Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate) for all overseas transactions done. This will be issued on a quarterly basis. A small documentation fee may be levied.

All transactions will appear as world.ccavenue.com/charge in your customer's Credit Card statement. All American Express transactions will continue to be reflected as www.CCAvenue®.com in your customer's credit card statements. During the transaction and after successful payment we make it amply evident to your customer (on the pay page and by a confirmation e-mail) that his credit card statement will reflect the charge to www.CCAvenue.com.

A refund that is forced by a Credit Cardholder's credit card company is known as charge back. This occurs when a cardholder decides to formally dispute a charge on his/her Credit Card bill, usually because someone else fraudulently used that card number. Credit Cards Permit Chargebacks as per their rules any online transaction can/may also be revoked or refuted by a customer to a Sub Merchant via his card-issuing bank for the following reasons. This is allowable for up to 6 months from date of the transaction.a) The Sub Merchant has not shipped the goods or delivered the promised service. b) The Sub Merchant has taken back the goods /cancelled the services but has not yet issued a refund on the Credit Card. c) The cardholder's Credit Card has been fraudulently used by someone else to procure goods and services - without knowledge or prior agreement of the cardholder.

As CCAvenue® has implemented two new security protocols - Verified By Visa & MasterCard Secure Code, this will virtually eliminate the instance of charge backs for the reasons of `Transaction Not Authorized' in Visa& MasterCard Internet transactions. (To find out more about these protocols please click here.)

CCAvenue's payment gateway service provider, has state-of-the-art fraud screening capabilities to reduce risks. However, if any chargeback is reported by the cardholder, you (sub-merchant) will be liable to pay the amount back to CCAvenue or it will be adjusted with the current balance of your account with CCAvenue; or you will be liable to refund back the disputed amount back to CCAvenue. Please note that this practice is universal and is followed by all payment gateway service providers the world over. CCAvenue has also an in-house team, which will screen all the transactions. Please see the section on fraud reduction tips for more information. In cases which prima facie look fraudulent, the same will be referred back to payment gateway for a further thorough authorization and if it is still authorized then CCAvenue will forward the transaction to the Sub Merchant so as to enable him/her to use his/her judgment whether or not he wants to execute the order or not. The chargeback disputes are normally less than 1% of the total transactions in a year. a) Sub Merchant should keep complete proof of goods being shipped. This could be in the form of a Courier consignment note or Receipt from the final consignee. c) The Sub Merchant can prove that the customer was informed in advance about refunds / return of goods for replacement faulty goods. A CHARGEBACK CAN ONLY BE REVERSED IF THE CREDIT CARD HOLDER FORMALLY INFORMS HIS/HER BANK OR Credit Card ISSUING INSTITUTION THAT HE/SHE WILL ACCEPT THE DISPUTED CHARGE. Fraudulent use of a Credit Card on the Internet is always at the risk of the Sub Merchant. Sub Merchants should keep an internal benchmark for the level of transaction for which he will take a risk, without asking for additional documentation from a customer. Example: ABC Shops has internally set a per transaction limit of USD 500/-. Which means that up to USD 500/-, ABC Shops will process an order without asking the customer to provide additional proof. If the transaction amount is more than the internal benchmark of USD 500/- then proof is required for: a) That this customer owns the Credit Card he is using. b) He is who he says he is. (ID) So ABC Shops asks any customer who does a transaction over USD 500 to send by fax the following:- a) The last statement he received from the Credit Card company, which clearly shows his Credit Card billing address as well as the Credit Card number. b) A copy of his driving license / national identity card / PAN No. / Passport which proves he is the person who has placed the order. When ABC Shops has these documents, then they can go ahead with the customer without any doubts knowing full well that no fraudulent usage is taking place of the Credit Card being used for the purchase of their goods or service.

Once a transaction of say USD 1000/- comes from your site and forwarded to the gateway and authorized in real time, it means that USD 1000/- of your customers Credit Card is blocked from his Credit Card limit that he enjoys for a period of 13 days. For eg. If you customers Credit Card has a credit limit of USD 5000/-, USD 1000/- will be blocked for your transaction for a period of 13 days from the time of the transaction from your site. Your customer after doing transaction from your site, will have only a Credit Card limit of $4000/- left. This $1000/- that is blocked for 13 days will not be reflected in his Credit Card statement until unless you capture the order from your CCAvenue account backend, only after which it will be reflected in his Credit Card statement. Therefore, you have to ship your order within 12 days and capture the amounts from your CCAvenue account backend. If your business model requires that you capture the amount before you actually ship the order and your customer is agreeable to the same, then you may do so. If you don't capture within 12 days, the transaction automatically evaporates from the payment gateway system on the 13th day and the Credit Card limit of USD 5000/- is restored to your customer's Credit Card. You cannot block your customer's card forever. This facility helps Merchants in a way that if they want to cancel or do partial capture within 12 days of the receipt of the order, then they do not have to pay any cancellation charges of 5% on the cancelled amounts. Before the introduction of this facility, merchants had to pay cancellation charges for orders they could not fulfill.

CCAvenue maintains a customer-friendly refund policy. This keeps our administrative costs under control in two ways: First, it reduces the amount of time spent researching customer inquiries; and secondly, it reduces the occurrence of chargeback disputes. (A chargeback dispute is a refund that is forced by the customer's credit card company.)
Granting Refund to customer:
In most situations when a customer asks for a refund, we want to try our best to grant that refund. Here are some guidelines on our refund and dispute policies: The Seller sets a time limit: The sub-merchant is required to set the refund time limit on his/her site depending on the goods sold on his/her site. If a customer is dissatisfied with a product that he/she has ordered, the client should accept the product back and grant a refund. If desired, a client may specify that shipping charges are not refundable; however, we would prefer to refund the shipping charges as well.

A Sub Merchant can cancel an order with out any Service fees being charged only as long as the order is cancelled in the window period (this period is fixed by CCAvenue which is currently set at twelve days). If the sub merchant fails to either capture/cancel in the window period, transaction becomes invalid. No additional cancellation charges are applied.

All payouts will be done in INR. For example: If you have 2 accounts with us, an INR account and a USD account. Your sales from each currency will go into their respective accounts. However, in both case you will be paid in INR.

The banks around the world will identify all charges to the credit of world.ccavenue.com/charge.

No, you may have a web site in whichever country you wish. You will simply be hyper linking to us for the secure, on-line Credit Card processing, so whether your site is across the road or halfway around the world CCAvenue can process your Credit Card transactions!

It is the responsibility of the merchants to link their site to CCAvenue. All technical specs are located on our web site. Depending on the complexity of the merchant's site and technical skills, it will take between 30 minutes to a few hours.

This is initiated by a cardholder with their bank disputing a Credit Card charge from a merchant. This usually happens for one to four reasons. 1) Don't recognize the merchant name. 2) Don't remember purchasing from the merchant. 3) Didn't receive goods or services. 4) Didn't use their Credit Card to make purchase. CCAvenue will produce the receipt for the transaction on your behalf with all the details about the products, approval codes and customer info and send this information back to the cardholder's bank. Points 1) and 2) will usually be resolved with receipt. Point 3) upon discussion with the merchant and the customer can usually be resolved either by showing proof of delivery or re-delivery. Point 4) is more difficult and could result in a "Chargeback".

Up until recently after the 'Clear Copy Request' process, if the cardholder still says it wasn't them and the merchant has no proof of delivery or authorization in writing, then *Visa, MasterCard and American Express will chargeback the dollar amount of the transaction to the merchant. Under the Merchant Agreements with *Visa/MasterCard/Amex they do not guarantee non-face to face Credit Card transactions, even though the original transaction was approved. They would only guarantee the transaction if the merchant saw the card and has a signature from a receipt. These were the rules but CCAvenue would fight for the merchant in these cases and despite the fact, all internet transactions are non-face to face, the banks are willing to review each on a case by case basis.

However, with the introduction of the latest 3 D Secure Protocol this risk of chargeback due to "Transaction Not Authorized" has been eliminated. CCAvenue has already implemented "Verified by Visa" the new online security feature introduced by Visa and will shortly be implementing the "MasterCard Secure Code" as well .

Refunds can be handled by CCAvenue M.A.R.S. system. These will occur if the merchant is unable to deliver a product or service, has over-charged or agrees to refund a customer. You can process a refund to the cardholder by viewing the order and clicking on the 'Refund' link provided and entering the dollar amount to be refunded. A refund can only be done for a transaction processed through our system. The amount cannot exceed the original dollar amount.

All transactions will appear as world.ccavenue.com/charge in your customer's Credit Card statement. If you have opted for the Direct Merchant Accounting Feature AND your customer is using Visa or MasterCard and if your company name is Rare Books Inc. then your customers will see on their next credit card statement "Rare Books Inc.". This is very important for two reasons; it reminds your customers about the product they purchased from your company and prevents chargebacks since they are more likely to remember your company name.

In case of American Express card however this feature is not available so your customers will see the charge to "world.ccavenue.com/charge" on their next credit card statement.

No, you do not need to have your own merchant numbers to process your transactions through CCAvenue. If you have been opted for a Direct Merchant Account you will be identified to your customers' MasterCard / Visa companies as USD Internet merchants with your own unique merchant numbers. Which will translate into "YOUR BUSINESS NAME" on your customers' monthly MasterCard / Visa statements.

This feature applies only for all Visa and MasterCard transactions. All American Express transactions will continue to be reflected as world.ccavenue.com/charge in your customer's credit card statements.

An "Auth Fee" is applied at the time of successful authorization of each transaction.

At anytime you can choose to upgrade from an Economy Account to the Premium Account or the Privilege Account (by paying the difference in setup fees), through the 'Settings and Options' link within your CCAvenue M.A.R.S panel.

Please note that NO downgrades are allowed from the Privilege Account type to Premium Account type or from the Privilege Account type to the Economy Account type.

Transactions processed by Credit Card through CCAvenue are always presented to the sub-merchant in the "pending" mode. Which means that the sub-merchant is guaranteed that the customers card is good / credit worthy for the amount of that transaction for the next 12 days. During this period of 12 days the sub-merchant has to perform any one of the following actions.
a) He may decide not to fulfill the order and mark it as cancelled.
b) After arriving at a consensus with the buyer decide to ship part of the ordered goods and claim only an amount equal to the shipped order.
c) Ship all of the ordered goods and claim the entire value of the transaction.

If the sub-merchant is confident of shipping the goods after a period of 12 days ( and has the agreement of the customer for this) he may go ahead and capture the amount, and subsequently ship the goods as per their agreement. Should the sub-merchant subsequently fail to do this and wish to refund the amount, the charge of 7% or 5% will have to be borne for the gateway usage. Once the capture / fulfillment process has been completed by the sub-merchant CCAvenue's accounts department will process all such "captures" undertaken till mid-night of Monday IST are processed for payment on the following Friday. A 5% Rolling Reserve will be maintained for 180 days.

Yes - CCAvenue uses secure servers throughout. Contrary to media myth, computer-to-computer transactions using secure servers are generally considered very safe indeed - certainly as safe as, or even safer than, transactions, which rely on signatures on bits of paper or card details dictated across a potentially open telephone lines. CCAvenue contains a number of features designed for e-commerce security across the Internet. Combined, these features make CCAvenue many times more secure than other "distant" users of a Credit Card, such as telephone or mail order and of course, its competitors. CCAvenue adopts stringent security measures to ensure that critically sensitive information, such as your customer's personal information, is protected.

Authorization by Secure Gateways
All your customers' Credit Card Authorization is done using ICICI bank's Secure Payment Gateways. Your customers enter all their personal information and Credit Card details on the secure servers and the same is encrypted before it is transmitted over the Internet to the Acquiring Banks. Additionally CCAvenue's server is behind security firewalls to ensure maximum protection of your customer's information. This guarantees that your information is inaccessible to any third party. CCAvenue uses industry-standard SSL (Standard Sockets Layer) Technology, which is used worldwide, for this data encryption.

Authentication by Verisign
CCAvenue is registered with Verisign, the world's best and most trust worthy Net Authentication Agency. Click here to verify our certificate. CCAvenue also follows strict in-house security guidelines for ensuring confidentiality of your customer information. Since the Payment Gateway application software is maintained at secure high-end servers, new payment technologies, standards and features are automatically implemented as they emerge. ICICI’s payment gateway is integrated with risk management component, which empowers them with the ability to control risk effectively. So, without changing your interface, you get the benefits of the latest technologies, which allows you to stay ahead in the rapidly changing landscape of E-commerce.

CCAvenue uses the most powerful Verisign secure socket layer (SSL) for encrypting customer data during transmission. To put this into non-technical terms, it would take 340,000,000,000 years for today's fastest computers to crack Verisign SSL. Click here to verify our certificate.

You may represent your product pricing in any number of currencies. At the end of the transaction when your client has to checkout to the CCAvenue payment option page, we require that the payment amount is in USD equivalent only. This is because we do not process the final payment in any other currency but USD. And no, you do not have to create a separate shopping cart link for the various currencies.

You need to have a backend process that will convert your displayed foreign currency price into USD. Eg. If a customer in the US buys a product worth EUR € 10, this amount must get converted to USD at the current exchange rate at your end; before it is thrown to CCAvenue. Your buyer will see the USD amount on this CCAvenue page (which offers multiple payment options). At this point, he can view the exchange value of the USD amount being billed to him in his local currency; by using the live CCAvenue currency converter link. By calculating the exchange value at the precise time of the transaction, (EUR € >< USD) the customer can see exactly how much will be billed to him in his currency on his Credit Card statement.
Your customer will be billed in his local currency in his card statement.

Particulars	Amount
Customer Buy Price	USD 10/-
Live Conversion rate on the CCAvenue currency convertor	1 USD = 0.9031 EUR
Actual Amount billable by CCAvenue in USD (USD 10 x .9031)	EUR € 9.031
Your website Conversion rate	1 USD = 0.901 EUR
Amount thrown to CCAvenue Payment checkout page (USD 10 x .901)	EUR € 9.01
Amount billed to, and payable by, customer in USD according to your exchange ratio	extra
Amount Charged to your customer's Credit Card	EUR € 9.01>< USD 9.97

Please do a test transaction on a website like www.saranam.com and see how it works, it will be more clear then.

No genius in the world can predict at what exchange rate (EURO >< USD) rate the end customer is going to get his Credit Card bill as this fluctuates by the minute. So to play safe, you must ensure that, no matter what happens, the end customer should not see any amount over USD 10/- on his Credit Card billing statement. For this, you need to work with a benchmark. Let's assume, the USD rate today for EURO is 1 USD = 0.9031 EUR. You should take a benchmark of 1 USD = 0.901 EUR. Which means that even if the clients' bank is actually using the exchange rate EURO is 1 USD = 0.9031 EUR, the client will only be billed USD 9.97; as against USD 10/- which he agreed to pay you. (This is arrived at by USD 10 x .9031 = EURO 9.031/9.01= 9.97) To ensure the best deal for both you and the customer, you will have to regularly monitor the EURO >< USD rate of exchange, and maintain an optimum difference parameter. While small corrections in the exchange rate do not affect your customer's price negatively, you must also be careful not to under price yourself on the exchange rate too much. Do upwardly revise your EURO calculation if there is a huge jump in the exchange rates, so that this jump can add to your profitability.

CCAvenue is a pure internet model with only online sales and support. All the details you require to enroll and conduct business through CCAvenue are available at www.ccavenue.com For any specific queries not answered by the FAQs, or info on the website, please email us at service@world.ccavenue.com. Alternatively, you can chat online with our support staff on any day from Monday to Saturday on our online chat support.

To confirm your current balance payable, log in to your CCAvenue.com account by using your user name and password. On the screen that follows, click "View Account Statement" option.

Yes, you (sub-merchant) need to maintain a minimum balance of USD 50/- in your online CCAvenue.com Account. A 5% Rolling Reserve will also be retained from your payouts for a period of 180 days.

CCAvenue allows you the sub-merchant the flexibility of setting when you receive payments. Once the net payables in your account exceed USD 50/-, CCAvenue will issue regular cheques for all amounts over & above of USD 50/- and after retaining a 5% Rolling Reserve from your payouts (these will be retained only for a period of 180 days). Payouts will be made according to the payment frequency settings specified by you in Merchant Control Panel under 'Settings and Options'. You may choose to set your payment frequency to weekly, monthly - either in the first week or the last week of the month OR when the balance in your account crosses a particular threshold level set by you. You may alternatively choose to hold your payments until you request them.

All orders shipped/executed until Monday midnight IST are processed for payment on the following Friday. Transactions are then paid-out by either of two methods as chosen by you on our Merchant Control Panel:

a) Direct Transfer: Sub-Merchants holding an account with the following banks, can opt for direct credit to their accounts, with any branch in the country by requesting us to deposit a Mumbai cheque:- ABN Amro Bank, Canara Bank, HDFC Bank Limited, ICICI Bank Limited, Axis Bank Limited, Citibank, Corporation Bank, Standard Chartered ANZ Grindlays, Global Trust Bank, Centurion Bank, IDBI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, Karur Vysya Bank Limited, Kotak Mahindra Bank, the Federal Bank, Bank of Rajasthan, State Bank Of India, Union Bank of India, Yes Bank and any other bank which allows us to deposit cheques to your current /personal account directly from Mumbai.

b) Cheque: Citibank at par cheque payable as a local cheque in your city dispatched on Tuesday evening by courier.

Every online merchant's worst nightmare is financial and reputation loss incurred through the charge back of online transactions. CCAvenue® is one of the few websites that has implemented two new security protocols - Verified By Visa & MasterCard Secure Code, which will virtually eliminate the instance of charge backs for the reasons of `Transaction Not Authorized' in Visa & MasterCard Internet transactions:

a) The cardholder cannot dispute that he did not participate in the transaction.
b) Even if the cardholder does dispute his /her participation in the transaction (because his /her card is not enrolled in the Verified By Visa OR MasterCard Secure Code program) the merchant has zero financial liability and the cost of the transaction has to be borne by the bank or financial institution who issued the Credit Card.
c) However disputes related to quality and or delivery of the merchandise could still result in a charge back if the merchant has not addressed these issues when the customer has raised queries directly or via his Credit Card issuing bank.
The Verified By Visa and MasterCard Secure Code process virtually eliminates charge backs.

Verified By Visa
Visa has developed a new online security feature called Verified by Visa that works with existing Visa cards. With Verified by Visa, consumers can rest assured that using their Visa cards on the Web is just as safe as using it at a local merchant around the corner. Additionally, participating merchants receive added protection from fraudulent chargeback activity.
Through the simple Verified by Visa checkout process, Visa card Issuers confirm consumers' identities in real time during transactions at participating merchant sites. And unlike other services that promise online security, with Verified by Visa, merchants initiate the authentication process. Shoppers don't have to load special software or open a digital wallet. So a simple and painless shopping experience is maintained for your customers.

How the Verified By Visa process works
If you are a card holder then you get a unique password from Visa. Your Verified by Visa password helps ensure that only you can use your Visa card number to buy online.

See a demo Enable JavaScript in your browser to see a Demo of how Verified by Visa protects you while shopping online.

Once your card is activated, your card number will be recognized whenever you purchase at participating online stores. You'll enter your password in the Verified by Visa window, your identity will be verified, and the transaction will be completed. In stores that are not yet participating in Verified by Visa, your Visa card will continue to work as usual.

When the consumer clicks "buy" at checkout, software installed on the merchant server recognizes registered Visa cards and the Verified by Visa screen automatically appears in the consumer's browser. The consumer simply enters his/her password and the password is verified.
Verified by Visa improves the security of payment transactions in the electronic commerce environment over open networks. It is designed to increase both cardholder and merchant confidence in Internet purchases, as well as to reduce disputes and fraudulent activity related to the use of Visa payment cards. Further benefits of Verified by Visa for e-commerce merchants are highlighted below.

Improve Internet Purchases
Enhance the security and integrity of Internet purchase transactions.
Enable Issuers to authenticate cardholders for Internet commerce.
Support card authentication (such as smart Visa cards provide) and other evolving technologies for wider Internet card usage with minimal impact on merchant processes.
Increase the confidence of Visa cardholders in making more online purchases, while reducing fraud exposure for merchants.

Reduce Operational Expense
Reduce operational expense and charge backs related to unauthorized use of Visa cards for Internet purchases.
Link authentications with authorization and settlement transactions to ensure Internet transaction data integrity.
Streamline dispute resolution processes through the use of automated tools to prevent invalid exception items.
Participating merchants receive added protection from fraudulent charge back activity.

MasterCard Secure Code benefits
70% of e-commerce charge backs are "cardholder unauthorized" due to cardholders saying "I didn't do it." SecureCode gives you a way to reduce charge back and fraud costs.

70% of consumers surveyed by MasterCard say they are concerned with security and fraud issues. SecureCode gives them more confidence.

73% say that enhanced security would influence their decision to purchase online. SecureCode encourages online shopping.

61% are concerned that their credit card number will be intercepted by "hackers." Accepting cards from other countries will be easier and less risky; SecureCode helps you move into new markets.

CCAvenue merchants receive their payments in INR only; the processing currency does not come into play. ICICI bank will convert US dollars into INR based on the then current exchange rate.

You can have either a current or a savings ICICI account. As part of the documentation for activation of your account, we will require a copy of a void cheque with your / your business name imprinted. If not available with imprinted business name, we require a letter from your banker verifying bank account details and the signing authority's signature and photograph.

In simple terms, a sub-merchant "Transaction Discount Rate" is the amount of money ( 7% percent for Economy account holders, 5% for Premium account holders and 3% for Privilege Account holders) that the CCAvenue will deduct on each approved Credit Card transaction. This discount fee is on the gross dollar transaction amount, including taxes and shipping if included.

CCAvenue allows you the sub-merchant the flexibility of setting when you receive payments. Once the net payables in your account exceed USD 50/-, CCAvenue will issue regular cheques for all amounts over & above of USD 50/- and after retaining a 5% Rolling Reserve from your payouts (these will be retained only for a period of 180 days). Payouts will be made according to the payment frequency settings specified by you in Merchant Control Panel under 'Settings and Options'. You may choose to set your payment frequency to weekly, monthly - either in the first week or the last week of the month OR when the balance in your account crosses a particular threshold level set by you. You may alternatively choose to hold your payments until you request them.

All orders shipped/executed until Monday midnight IST are processed for payment on the following Friday. Transactions are then paid-out by either of two methods as chosen by you on our Merchant Control Panel:

a) Sub-Merchants holding an account with the following banks, can opt for direct credit to their accounts, with any branch in the country by requesting us to deposit a Mumbai cheque:- ABN Amro Bank, Canara Bank, HDFC Bank Limited, ICICI Bank Limited, Axis Bank Limited, Citibank, Corporation Bank, Standard Chartered ANZ Grindlays, Global Trust Bank, Centurion Bank, IDBI Bank, IndusInd Bank, Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Jammu & Kashmir Bank, Karur Vysya Bank Limited, Kotak Mahindra Bank, the Federal Bank, Bank of Rajasthan, State Bank Of India, Union Bank of India, Yes Bank and any other bank which allows us to deposit cheques to your current /personal account directly from Mumbai.

b) Citibank at par cheque payable as a local cheque in your city dispatched on Tuesday evening by courier.

No, most other Payment gateways only pay you after months or some even as long as 6 months after the transaction. Not CCAvenue! You have the flexibility to set up the frequency at which you wish to receive payments. You may choose to set your payment frequency to weekly, monthly - either in the first week or the last week of the month OR when the balance in your account crosses a particular threshold level set by you.

Each customer that inputs a transaction for approval will be assigned a sequential sales order number from our system, whether they are approved or declined. Emails are sent automatically to the merchant. In addition, if you lose an email or are unable to retrieve, your M.A.R.S account captures all information about the transactions stored by sequential sales order #'s. That way you will see any order you are missing.

By using our secure, password protected M.A.R.S. account. The system will list each order and do a summary of # of orders and total dollar amounts.

For our Indian merchants an FIRC (Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate) for all overseas transactions done will be issued by your bank, to enable you to claim exports benefits under section 80 HH of the Income Tax Act. With your bank now directly issuing the FIRC, the export documentation process is smoothened and quickened, along with the tax claims procedure, helping you reduce operational costs.

The export procedures related to Internet sales are a concern of all our Indian sub-merchants and we have tried to address your concerns here. Basically the transactions received over the Internet can be divided into the following classes.

a) Export as Gift Shipment - No SDF or GR is required unto a value of Rs 1,00,000 (Please download rbi_rules_exports.pdf)
b) Exports in normal course without SDF or GR if the exporter gives a declaration that the value does not exceed Rs 25,000 per shipment. (Please download rbi_rules_exports.pdf)
Please also download and check out rbi_guidelines_for_export_receipts.pdf, in which it is stated that Credit Card, as a means of payment, is acceptable for export of goods and/ or services.

Also Click here ,to Download the AP (DIR Sense) Circular No.53 (June 27,2002) Issued by the Reserve Bank of India, regarding the Use Of Credit Cards.

Please note we have provided this information as a service to our sub-merchants and although we make all attempts to keep our information dated, we request that you please check the latest circulars issued by the RBI for more information.

Courier Export Procedure:
If you have goods on which you intend to claim duty drawback benefits or import license benefits or any other benefits that relate to the Ministry of Commerce then it is important that exports be carried out with an SDF and regular shipping bills as well as the courier endorsed House Airway Bill which clearly shows your consignment number marked. All of these documents should be attested by the customs authorities and provided to you by the courier company. Please do also note that for the purpose of claiming export performance for Income tax benefits under section 80 HHC, you only need to provide an FIRC certificate, which proves that the foreign exchange has been earned. This has to be certified by a CA. Your bank will provide you with an FIRC (Foreign Inward Remittance Certificate) for all your transactions which are through your Non-Indian customers.