Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 17:34:33 +0000 From: Neil Harris usenet@tonal.clara.co.uk Subject: Credit card processing for forthcoming fundraiser: Was: Re: [Wikitech-l] pages update call :-) To: Wikimedia developers wikitech-l@wikimedia.org Cc: board@wikimedia.org

If there's going to be another fundraiser soon, does anyone know if any progress has been made towards accepting credit card donations?

I believe that this could significantly improve the amount of money donated, by removing a barrier to donation for people would like to donate but do not have PayPal-style accounts, and do not want the hassle of money orders, inter-bank-transfers and so on.

Online credit card processing actually fits within the expertise of my day job so hopefully I can be of some help. In order to directly accept credit card payments the Wikimedia Foundation will have to establish a "merchant" relationship with a credit card payment system. At least in the U.S. there are two basic types: processor and gateway. The former has much more stringent requirements, including specific network configurations (usually a leased-line connection directly to the payment system) and a lengthy certification process. Gateways are much simpler, and some allow connecting to their payment servers over the Internet using generic protocols such as HTTP. The drawback to using gateways are that they are middle-men whose services are simply wrappers on top of processor specifications which the Foundation could just as well directly implement.

The choice thus comes down to whether the increased cost of using a gateway exceeds the headache of directly dealing with a processor. If the Foundation wants to directly handle credit cards payments then the first step is to talk with the payment systems about rates.

I am confused, though, as to why PayPal is not a viable option. Every payment system imposes some sort of per-transaction fee, and the 3% transaction amount charge reflects not another part of PayPal's cut, but simply the fact that the merchant receives money from the card holder's bank immediately while the card holder is given a 20-30 day grace period before interest accrues on their new balance. Thus switching from PayPal may not necessarily save much on costs.

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