How To Process Payments In Canada?

The businesses which plan to implement a payment processor or a payment gateway integration in Canada need to keep in mind that they will have to add some special functionality required by Interac Association, the major Canadian inter-bank network. This functionality is related to the peculiarities of processing card-present and card-not-present transactions in Canada.

In Canada payment service providers and payment processors use an additional transaction validation level for both EMV and swipe payments. A message authentication /MAC block (a special block of encrypted data) is added to every transaction when it is transmitted from the payment terminal to the processor. The MAC block provides the additional protection of the data and allows both the processor and the terminal to verify that the data has not been changed while sending.

For card-not-present transactions the mechanism similar to 3D secure is used. This mechanism helps to verify the cardholder’s identity when he/she buys something online.

That’s why if you plan to have integrations with Canadian processors you will have to add some specific functionality to your software. This is a very brief explanation of the issue. And those who are interested in the more profound one can read the article at #UniPayGateway.