The Contractor shall establish a flexible merchant identification framework that supports multiple merchant IDs or comparable identifiers for the Authority, as determined in consultation with the Authority. This structure must accommodate location, transaction type, and reporting needs across all divisions accepting payments. The Authority currently maintains two merchant IDs. The Contractor shall ensure that each merchant ID established includes appropriate merchant descriptors and contact information (Authority name, customer service phone number, and website/email as applicable) to be printed on customer credit card or bank statements, in compliance with card network requirements. The Contractor shall comply with all applicable operating rules and regulations of card associations, processing networks, and governing entities. This includes, but is not limited to: PCI DSS compliance for data security. EMV standards for chip and contactless transactions. NACHA Operating Rules and Guidelines for ACH transactions. The Contractor shall be liable for violations when the Authority follows procedures established in conjunction with the Contractor. Integration of credit card processing with the Authority’s current billing software, Wasteworks, is highly preferred but not required. The Contractor must demonstrate the ability to integrate with Wasteworks. The payment processing system shall provide: Authorization response times consistent with industry standards (generally under 3 seconds for card-not-present transactions and under 10 seconds for EMV/contactless transactions). System availability of 99.9% uptime, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. Scheduled maintenance communicated in advance to the Authority, with minimal disruption to service. Failure to meet these performance or availability requirements may be deemed a material breach of contract. The Contractor must support customers making multiple transactions per day across card types, including recurring and installment payments. The payment gateway must support the ability to apply a service fee to customer transactions, including: A percentage-based fee applied to credit card and debit card transactions. The gateway must clearly distinguish between card types and apply the appropriate fee structure accordingly. All service fees must comply with applicable brand rules, state and federal regulations, and must be disclosed to customers prior to authorization. The Authority does not currently accept eCheck payments. However, the Authority intends to implement eCheck functionality following the award of this RFP and execution of the contract. The selected Contractor shall provide the capability to support eCheck transactions, including integration, testing, and deployment, as part of the contracted services...
