If you intend to sell products or services on-line you will need to give your customers peace of mind when asking them for sensitive information such as credit card details. We will provide you with a secure form for capturing orders and other sensitive information from your customers. Orders can either be processed online in 'real-time' or manually off-line through your own credit card terminal using an existing merchant account with your bank. Simply download credit card information securely from your online "transaction control panel" to process through existing merchant facilities. Q. How secure is the system? We use industry standard Internet encryption with 128 bit SSL software developed by RSA Data. We hold a digital certificate from Thawte (an established certification authority) which is compatible with Netscape and Microsoft browsers. When the customer enters your order form hosted on our secure server their browser will automatically inform them that encryption is being used. Furthermore, all data stored on the secure server is encrypted again and protected by a firewall, the specification of which has been recognised by the major banks. Your customers' card details are kept confidential at all times, and none of your orders will be seen by anyone other than you unless you request us to access your account for support reasons. When applying to your bank for a merchant account they may ask you for the security details, as follows:- Security Information 1. Describe encryption used for credit card transactions over the Internet The secure server uses 128bit SSL encryption with a digital certificate issued by Thawte. This is to encrypt all data as it is transferred over the Internet. 2. Describe internal network partitioning and firewall technology A dedicated firewall machine (running Windows firewall software) is installed to control access to the secure server. The secure server is isolated from all other networked machines. All credit card numbers stored on the server are encrypted using 3DES encryption. MERCHANT ACCOUNTS Every company trading on the Internet needs a merchant account - the facility to accept credit and debit cards. Traditionally these are hard to obtain, especially if you are a new or small business. Speak to your own bank, alternatively Barclaycard Merchant Services now offer a fast-track merchant account suitable for all types of businesses, with a turnaround period of 48 hours on applications. Go to http://www.barclaycardmerchantservices.co.uk for further information.